Annual Report - National Human Rights Commission

Complaints Before the Commission
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mental illness, report should be sent to the relevant District and Sessions Judge as well as
the Magistrate on a quarterly basis i.e. every three months, as per proforma prescribed by
the High Court.
(xii)
(xiii)
(xiv)
(xv)
(xvi)
As soon as it comes to the notice of the trial court that an undertrial is mentally unsound
and cannot understand the nature of proceedings against him, the trial court must follow
the procedure under Chapter 25 CrPC and ensure strict compliance of Mental Health
Act 1987, relating to progress report of undertrial. In this regard the trial court must ask
for periodic report of the progress of the undertrial as detailed by the proforma.
The Delhi Judicial Academy could include short-term capsule course to sensitize judicial
officers likely to deal with mental health cases and to orient such officers to the Mental
Health Act, 1987. These short-term courses could be institutionalized and provided to
each batch of judicial officers.
When the trial of a mentally illperson 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 Delhi to be put up to the Hon’ble 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, by filling the prescribed proforma.
The State Government must strengthen legal aid services; they should extend beyond
representation before magistrate when the case is taken up. Given the record of mentally
ill persons not being produced for years before the court, preventive legal aid is required
to check the abuse of law and dumping the mentally ill in prisons. Rejection by the
family means that no one would be approached to provide help to the jailed person.
Legal aid, in the person of duty counsel at police stations, can help enforce procedures
and screen out the vagrant mentally ill from the criminal justice process even at the
point of entry. Duty counsel in courts can ensure that no mentally ill person is
unrepresented.
The state must assume responsibility also for those persons who have been discharged
from prison and hospital and no longer require full time care for mental illness, but are
unable to take care of themselves. According to Help age India, the Department of Social
Welfare, Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi plans to establish some
additional old age homes. Ideally, some of these would be earmarked for older persons,
who have been subjected to social injustice eg. those like Mr. Charanjeet Singh who
have suffered unnecessary incarceration. The Government’s running of such
establishments has left much to desired due to bureaucratic management, an attachment
to rules and procedures rather than sensitive provision of support; the state of existing
old age homes run by the government in Delhi makes this clear.
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