NHRC's recommendations on mentally challenged prisoners accepted by Punjab & Haryana High Court.
New Delhi, 14th September 2006
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has accepted in toto NHRC's recommendations for mentally challenged prisoners languishing in the jails of the two states. The decision came last month, while hearing the case of one Jai Singh, a mentally challenged person, who had died in prison after spending almost 30 years there as an undertrial.
Some of the recommendations of NHRC in the case of mentally challenged prisoners are ---.
Central and District jails should have facilities for preliminary treatment of mental disorder ; Not a single mentally ill person who is not accused with committing a crime should be kept in or sent to prison. Such people should be taken for observation to the nearest psychiatric center; If an under-trial or a convict-undergoing sentence becomes mentally ill while in prison, the State has an affirmative responsibility to the under-trial or convict and it must provide adequate medical support. When a convict has been admitted to a mental hospital for psychiatric care, upon completion of the period of this prison sentence, his status in all records of the prison and hospital should be that of a free person and he should continue to receive treatment as a free person ; Regarding those under trials whose trial has been suspended for even a single day due to mental illness, reports should be sent to the relevant District and Session Judges as well as the Magistrate on a quarterly basis i.e. every three months; As soon as it comes to the notice of the trial court that an under trial has been diagnosed as mentally ill, the trial court must ask for periodic reports of the progress of the under trial; When the trial of a mentally ill person is suspended for a period longer than 50% of the possible sentence (subject to a maximum of three years) the matter should be reported to the Registrar of the High Court of Punjab & Haryana to be put up to the Chief Justice for information and appropriate action. A copy of this report should be sent to the NHRC. Such reports should be made on a six monthly basis; The State Government must strengthen legal aid services. Given the record of mentally ill persons not being produced for years before a court, preventive legal aid is required to check the abuse of the law and dumping the mentally ill in prisons.
In Sept. 2004 NHRC had filed intervention application for impleading it as a party, in the Punjab and Haryana High Court to assist in the pending civil writ petition in the case of mentally ill undertrials in jails. NHRC took this decision while pursuing the case of Jai Singh, who had been 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 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 who was sent to Ambala jail in September 1976 on murder charges, was later transferred to mental hospital in Amritsar in May 1979 for treatment, and thereafter never produced in the trial court. A careful perusal of the various reports received by the Commission 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 was fit to face trial. Medical reports appeared to have been sent to the court only intermittently. It appeared that Jai Singh had been reduced to a number and forgotten.
In November-2004 NHRC, received a representation from Jai Singh's wife as well, wherein she had stated that she had been denied meetings with her husband. She prayed for his release on humanitarian grounds.
As the case was still pending before the Punjab and Haryana High Court because of Jai Singh's incapacity to face trial, the court was informed 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 persons. 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, a mentally ill inmate of Tihar Jail, Delhi. In this matter also the Commission presented before Delhi High Court guidelines 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 suggested by NHRC and to chalk out a proper strategy to deal with such cases of mentally ill prisoners who are convicts or undertrials.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has accepted in toto NHRC's recommendations for mentally challenged prisoners languishing in the jails of the two states. The decision came last month, while hearing the case of one Jai Singh, a mentally challenged person, who had died in prison after spending almost 30 years there as an undertrial.
Some of the recommendations of NHRC in the case of mentally challenged prisoners are ---.
Central and District jails should have facilities for preliminary treatment of mental disorder ; Not a single mentally ill person who is not accused with committing a crime should be kept in or sent to prison. Such people should be taken for observation to the nearest psychiatric center; If an under-trial or a convict-undergoing sentence becomes mentally ill while in prison, the State has an affirmative responsibility to the under-trial or convict and it must provide adequate medical support. When a convict has been admitted to a mental hospital for psychiatric care, upon completion of the period of this prison sentence, his status in all records of the prison and hospital should be that of a free person and he should continue to receive treatment as a free person ; Regarding those under trials whose trial has been suspended for even a single day due to mental illness, reports should be sent to the relevant District and Session Judges as well as the Magistrate on a quarterly basis i.e. every three months; As soon as it comes to the notice of the trial court that an under trial has been diagnosed as mentally ill, the trial court must ask for periodic reports of the progress of the under trial; When the trial of a mentally ill person is suspended for a period longer than 50% of the possible sentence (subject to a maximum of three years) the matter should be reported to the Registrar of the High Court of Punjab & Haryana to be put up to the Chief Justice for information and appropriate action. A copy of this report should be sent to the NHRC. Such reports should be made on a six monthly basis; The State Government must strengthen legal aid services. Given the record of mentally ill persons not being produced for years before a court, preventive legal aid is required to check the abuse of the law and dumping the mentally ill in prisons.
In Sept. 2004 NHRC had filed intervention application for impleading it as a party, in the Punjab and Haryana High Court to assist in the pending civil writ petition in the case of mentally ill undertrials in jails. NHRC took this decision while pursuing the case of Jai Singh, who had been 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 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 who was sent to Ambala jail in September 1976 on murder charges, was later transferred to mental hospital in Amritsar in May 1979 for treatment, and thereafter never produced in the trial court. A careful perusal of the various reports received by the Commission 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 was fit to face trial. Medical reports appeared to have been sent to the court only intermittently. It appeared that Jai Singh had been reduced to a number and forgotten.
In November-2004 NHRC, received a representation from Jai Singh's wife as well, wherein she had stated that she had been denied meetings with her husband. She prayed for his release on humanitarian grounds.
As the case was still pending before the Punjab and Haryana High Court because of Jai Singh's incapacity to face trial, the court was informed 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 persons. 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, a mentally ill inmate of Tihar Jail, Delhi. In this matter also the Commission presented before Delhi High Court guidelines 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 suggested by NHRC and to chalk out a proper strategy to deal with such cases of mentally ill prisoners who are convicts or undertrials.