The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed Haryana to constitute a Mental Health Review Board within five weeks, while issuing a series of binding directions aimed at making the mental healthcare regime operational for citizens. The directions came as a division bench held that the key statutory safeguard under the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, was yet to be put in place despite lapse of for seven years since the constitution of the \u201cstate authority\u201d.<\/p>\n
Taking up the matter, the court simultaneously ordered Punjab to notify its Rules under the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, within 15 days. It also directed the Centre to \u201ctake a call and approve\u201d Chandigarh\u2019s draft Rules within the same timeframe, and recorded Haryana\u2019s assurance to notify its Rules within 15 days.<\/p>\n
The bench headed by Chief Justice Sheel Nagu also called for affidavits by the Chief Secretaries of Punjab and Haryana on establishment of group homes for persons with mental illness \u2014 a critical community-based rehabilitation measure \u2014 along with disclosures on annual reporting compliance, and status reports on need-based surveys by institutions. Admonishing the authorities for systemic delay, the bench observed that governments had taken \u201cyears together to formulate the Rules and sending to the Central Government for approval\u201d, even as citizens continued to be deprived of statutory mental health protections and infrastructure.<\/p>\n
The bench was hearing a public interest litigation filed against the state of Punjab and other respondents by Pushpanjali Trust through petitioner-in-person Aditya Vikram Rametra. The developments are significant as Mental Health Boards protect the rights of persons with mental illness, oversee their treatment and review supported admissions, manage complaints against mental health establishments, and ensure compliance with patient rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince it is statutorily incumbent upon the state authority, which is in existence in the state of Haryana, to constitute a Mental Health Board, which has not yet been established, despite lapse of seven years since constitution of the Authority, we issue a writ of mandamus to the state of Haryana to constitute a Mental Health Board within a period of five weeks,\u201d the bench asserted.<\/p>\n
The bench also flagged the absence of community-based rehabilitation facilities. \u201cWith regard to the aspect of establishing or\u00a0providing of half-way\u00a0homes, group homes or model group homes, one in each state and UT, it is found from the replies filed by the states of Punjab and Haryana that no such<\/p>\n
averment has been made,\u201d the bench observed.<\/p>\n
It added UT Chandigarh, as per information provided to the high court, had provided a Group Home in Sector 31, Chandigarh. The counsel for the state of Haryana, too informed that a half-way home for psycho-social rehabilitation centre had been established in Sampla, Rohtak district.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, none of the replies filed on behalf of the states of Punjab and Haryana indicates\u00a0towards\u00a0establishment of a group home under Section 19 (3) of the Act of 2017,\u201d the bench observed, before directing the filing of affidavits.<\/p>\n
Seeking data-driven planning, the court directed Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research to disclose the timeline and stage of its need-based survey in Punjab, and required Haryana to report on the national survey being conducted by All India Institute of Medical Sciences.<\/p>\n
Further, the court questioned whether statutory annual reports of the State Mental Health authorities \u2014 crucial for transparency and accountability \u2014 were being prepared at all. \u201cThe affidavits\u2026 should also disclose as to whether annual reports of the state authorities have been prepared\u00a0on annual\u00a0basis? If not, then why?\u201d<\/p>\n
The matter will be monitored further on May 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed Haryana to constitute a Mental Health Review Board within five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[234349,49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":["post-624925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-7-year-delay-slammed-hc-orders-mental-health-board-in-5-weeks","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}