New Delhi 7th September, 2006
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has accepted in toto the recommendations of NHRC for mentally challenged prisoners who have been languishing in different jails of the two states, after the matter came up for hearing before the Court last month.
It may be recalled that in Sept. 2004, the Commission had filed intervention application for impleading it as a party, in the State High Court, to assist in the pending Civil Writ Petition in the case of mentally ill undertrial and victims who were languishing in jails because of their mental condition. NHRC took the decision while pursuing the case of Jai Singh, a mentally ill patient who was in custody as a undertrial prisoner in Ambala Central Jail for nearly 27 years. This case came to the notice of the Commission when the Chairperson Dr. Justice A.S.Anand visited the Ambala Jail in October-2003. Soon the Commission sought reports from the Supdt. Mental Hospital Amritsar, Supt. Central Jail Ambala, DIG Ambala Range and Addl. Sessions Judge Kurukshetra.

Jai Singh was arrested in 1976 as an undertrial in a murder case and was later in May 1979 transferred to mental hospital in Amritsar for treatment and thereafter never produced in the trial court. A careful perusal of the various reports received, projected a rather distressing picture. The file of Jai Singh's case had been consigned to the record room with the direction that the case would be summoned as and when the accused is fit to face his trial. Medical reports appeared to have been sent to the court intermittently and not regularly. It appeared that Jai Singh had been reduced to a number and forgotten .
Meanwhile, in November-2004 NHRC also received representation from the wife of Jai Singh, Smt. Maya Devi wherein she had stated that she had been denied meetings with her husband who had been kept in confinement for the last 27 years. She prayed for his release on humanitarian grounds.
As the case was still pending before the Punjab and Haryana High Court and Jai Singh could not be brought to trial on account of his incapacity, the court was informed by the counsel that the prisoner had died in jail in October-2005.
Following NHRC's impleading in the Jai Singh's case, the court also took note of eleven other mentally challenged person. The court has asked the administration of the two states and the lower judiciary to follow the recommendations of the Commission in toto.
Earlier in March 2005 the Commission intervened in the case of one Charanjeet Singh, who was mentally ill and had been languishing in Tihar Jail, Delhi. In this matter also the Commission presented before the High Court of Delhi the guidelines, which were to be followed in the case of mentally ill prisoners. The Delhi High Court in its order dated 4.3.2005 had directed the Govt. of NCT, Delhi to adopt the guidelines as suggested by the NHRC and to draw out a proper strategy to deal with such cases of mentally ill prisoners who are convicts or facing trial in jails.
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