India awaits a judgment on mental disability

A very recent writ petition, Gaurav Kumar Bansal v Union of India and others, raised some pertinent issues about patients suffering from mental illness being kept in chains in asylums. The petitioner Gaurav Kumar Bansal alleged that some of the patients suffering from mental illness, who are lodged in Faith-Based Mental Asylum situated near Mohalla Kabulpur, Badayun District, Uttar Pradesh, are kept under chains. Certain photographs were also placed on record along with the petition.

While hearing the writ petition, the Supreme Court of India has observed that the act of keeping mentally disabled persons in chains in mental asylums violates such persons' dignity as human beings because a person, only by dint of being mentally disabled, does not cease to be a human being as such. This landmark observation was made by the bench comprised of Justice AK Sikri and Justice S Abdul Nazeer. The Judges observed that the issues that were raised in the petition were of serious concern and they were in need of taking into account with an immediate attention.

The bench requested Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta to appear on behalf of Union of India and to respond to the issues raised by the petitioner. “This is not only inhuman and violative of rights of such persons under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, as even a person suffering from mental disability is still a human being and his dignity cannot be violated,” the court said.

In its order, the court also added that alongside being violative of the constitutionally guaranteed rights, keeping such patients under chains is also against the spirit of Section 95 of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017. The Section prohibits treatments like electro-convulsive therapy without the use of muscle relaxants and anaesthesia, electro-convulsive therapy for minors, sterilisation of men or women, when such sterilisation is intended as a treatment for mental illness.