Why no review boards for mental patients: Court asks authorities

New Delhi : A Delhi court has asked the state mental health services authority to explain why review boards for mental health patients have not been constituted yet as mandated under the law.

The issue cropped up before Metropolitan Magistrate Abhilash Malhotra while hearing a plea moved by an NGO for mental health assessment of a homeless woman, who identified herself as an MBBS graduate and has been residing in their shelter home and had refused her medical examination without a court order or in absence of a lawyer.

Calling it a peculiar situation, the judge said the jurisdiction of allowing a person with mental illness to be admitted and treated without her consent vested with the district mental health review board and the court of metropolitan magistrate has no domain or jurisdiction to deal with the same.

"It is informed that the District Mental Health Review Boards are yet to be constituted... Section 73 of Mental Health Care Act, 2017 mandates that the state authority shall by notification constitutes the Mental Health Review Boards at all districts.

-Usha Rani Das