M A I N   N E W S

Don’t jail mentally ill: NHRC

NEW DELHI, Feb 15 (UNI) — The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has directed the state governments to ensure that no mentally ill person is kept in jail as it amounts to violation of human rights.

NHRC sources said here today that reiterating his resolve to safeguard the rights of the mentally ill persons now lodged in jails, NHRC Chairperson Justice J.S. Verma asked the state government to make proper arrangements for the treatment of deranged persons at approved institutions.

In a recent letter to Chief Ministers of all states and administrators of the union territories, he directed them “to issue clear directions to the Inspectors-General of Prisons to ensure that mentally ill persons are not kept in jail under any circumstances. Moreover, the state government should make all arrangements for their treatment at approved mental institutions and not treat them as unwanted human beings.’’

He said the NHRC had been receiving distressing reports from various states regarding the plight of mentally ill persons languishing in prisons without proper care and attention. He said an NHRC official during his visit to a central prison in a northeastern state found that as many as 44 deranged persons were lodged in the jail and they were not even receiving proper psychiatric treatment and attention. Even many non-criminal lunatics were being kept in jails in violation of the existing prison rules, he said.

The Mental Health Act, 1987, which came into force from April, 1993, does not permit the lodging of mentally ill persons in jails, Justice Verma pointed out. He said putting in jails was a very insensitive manner of dealing with the mentally ill presons as they were meant to be kept in mental asylums and given proper treatment.

Stating that the detention of mentally ill persons in jails amounts to egregious violation of human rights, he said the state governments could not escape their obligation to provide psychiatric treatment to them.

Earlier in September, 1996, Justice Ranganath Mishra, the then NHRC chairperson, had written to the state government that if the Commission’s Officers during jail inspections detect the presence of mentally ill persons in prison, the NHRC would award compensation to such persons or their families and direct the state government to recover the amount from the jail officials responsible for the lapse.