Bombay High Court seeks comprehensive plan, 6 more half-way homes for rehabilitation of cured mental health patients

The court also pulled up SMHA for its ‘chronic failure’ in implementing the law and raised concerns over lack of coordination between the authorities and absence of basic data from various departments and NGOs, required to redress the issues of the patients.

A division bench of Justice Nitin M Jamdar and Justice M M Sathaye, passed a final judgment with 25 directions disposing of PIL filed by psychiatrist Dr Harish Shetty through advocate Pranati Mehra in 2022, seeking implementation of the 2017 law.

The PIL had also highlighted the plight of patients admitted in institutions, including a woman who had been ‘languishing in’ Regional Mental Hospital in the state for 12 years. Her husband had filed for divorce after she was admitted in 2009 and her family had abandoned her. Twelve years later, in 2021, a Family Court-appointed committee found her coherent, raising “grave issues regarding apathy to the problem of mental health in the society and inefficiency of the institutional framework.”

The HC directed SMHA that attempts should be made to discharge at least 50 to 70 eligible patients every month from mental health establishments to either their family homes or the rehabilitation centre/halfway homes.

The court asked the SMHA to take steps to register all mental health establishments and maintain and publish their register online within six months and also develop quality norms for such institutions. The SMHA is also asked to initiate a process for registering clinical psychologists, mental health nurses and social workers as mental health professionals and publish their list within eight months.

The court directed SMHA to create its dedicated website within four months. Besides sensitising other stakeholders such as police and jail authorities, Child Welfare Committees and NGOs working in mental health on implementation of law, the SMHA was also asked to issue directions to mental health establishments to prominently display posters displaying rights of persons with mental illness along with helpline and toll-free numbers.

Passing directives for the government, the bench asked it to make ‘serious’ efforts to ensure SMHA’s activities are ‘not hampered’ by a lack of funds and vacancies are timely filed.

The HC asked the state to establish a common portal for police, other departments and mental health hospitals to accelerate the process of reuniting ‘unknown’ patients with their families located anywhere in the country. Every police station in-charge has been asked to report monthly to respective Mental Health Review Boards about progress of discharge of mental health patients in their areas.

The court also asked the state to fill within three months sanctioned additional posts of psychologists and psychiatrists at the jails and also consider the advisory of the National Human Rights Commission which included four trained counsellors for every 500 inmates.

Justice Jamdar-led bench, among other directions, also asked Maharashtra State Legal Services Authority (MSLSA) to create awareness about legal aid available to persons with mental illness and issue guidelines for DSLAs for assisting in discharging patients to relatives reluctant to take them home.

“The judgment began with the woman’s case, and we end it on a positive note. During the hearing of the PIL, she was reunited with her family, as we were informed,” the bench noted.