The court directed that the amounts be deposited within four weeks from today in the bank account of the woman who, on the evening of June 11, 2017, was forcibly taken away from her music teacher's residence, she adopted home since she turned 18 year
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A person can seek protection against an attack on the right to life not just from the State but also from private entities, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday said while imposing heavy fines on a private clinic, an ambulance service and the police for helping in forcibly taking away a 23-year-old woman, whose parents had sought to get her declared mentally ill, from her adopted home.
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A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and C Hari Shankar directed the woman's parents and the private clinic - Cosmos Institute of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences (CIMBS) - to pay her a compensation of Rs 3 lakh each, while the Delhi government and the ambulance service - Almas - were directed to deposit Rs 1 lakh each in her favour.
The court directed that the amounts be deposited within four weeks from today in the bank account of the woman who, on the evening of June 11, 2017, was forcibly taken away from her music teacher's residence, her adopted home since she turned 18 years old.
According to the music teacher's complaint, around 15 people, including the woman's parents and brother, had barged into their home, vandalised it, beaten them up and taken away the student after injecting her with a sedative. The teacher had moved the high court and due to its intervention, the woman was released from the mental health hospital where she had been confined to for more than a day without her consent and without ascertaining if she was suffering from any psychological disorder.
The court said her detention at the hospital was illegal and unconstitutional and violative of her fundamental rights to life, liberty, dignity and privacy under the Constitution.
"Protection against an attack on the right of life, liberty, privacy, and dignity can be sought not only against the State but also against non-State actors. Article 21 places an obligation both on State and non-State actors not to deprive a person of life, liberty, privacy and dignity except in accordance with the procedure established by law," it said.
Dealing with the role played by the doctors at the hospital, the bench said a patient cannot be admitted merely for observation as doing so would be in violation of the person's rights to life, liberty, and dignity. The court said a person cannot be admitted to a mental health institution in order to determine whether they require such an admission.
"The determination that she requires admission should be made prior to her actual admission and not later. In the present case, this basic requirement has been violated," it noted and added that the doctors of the private hospital failed to themselves examine her and come to a conclusion whether she required treatment as an in-patient.
The court noted that the doctors instead chose to believe the parents and a three-year-old certificate given by some other doctor.
The bench said if there was no code of ethics for psychiatrists in this country, "it would be indeed a serious lacuna which ought to be remedied".
"An aspect of this matter which is disturbing is psychiatrists being able to talk to each other on the telephone or through WhatsApp messages to decide whether a patient requires treatment as envisaged. This again is totally unacceptable. It is illegal and has implications of unconstitutionality.
"A professional psychiatrist requires personal interaction with a person before making a diagnosis of the person's mental condition. It is inconceivable that a psychiatrist can determine the mental state of a person by merely discussing the symptoms and conditions with another fellow psychiatrist over the telephone. If this practice is being followed then it has to be stopped. A code of ethics must be formulated in this regard," the court said.
It left it to the Medical Council of India (MCI) to formulate a separate code of ethics for psychiatrists to follow, saying that "such a code will reinforce the law".
It also noted that in the present case the practice adopted by the CIMBS doctors -- Sunil Mittal, Raj Mishra, and Sameer Kalani -- "was in violation of the law, the professional medical ethics and norms".
"They failed to satisfy themselves about the capacity of Z (the woman) to give consent to treatment. Z was forcibly kept by them at the CIMBS without her consent in violation of the MHA and the Constitution of India," it added.
"In view of such a serious breach of the law and professional ethics, action ought to be taken against the above doctors by the MCI. However, the question as to what action is to be taken against each of them is left to the MCI to decide. MCI will take note of this being the second known instance in twenty years of a violation of the law and ethics by Dr. Sunil Mittal and the Delhi Psychiatry Centre," the bench said.
With regard to the ambulance service and its staff, which had injected the woman with a sedative and forcibly taken her away to the hospital, believing her parents' claim that she was mentally ill, the bench said it was a fit case for the revocation of its registration.
"A peremptory direction is issued to the Government of NCT of Delhi to take action in regard to Almas (ambulance company) and such ambulances which have been registered outside the NCT of Delhi but are operating in Delhi with impunity and in violation of the applicable guidelines," the court said.
The bench also ordered a probe against the police personnel who were involved in the case and did not take requisite action in the matter.
It directed the Delhi Police to prepare a manual, detailing how to deal with cases under the Mental Health Act.
"It must prepare a protocol in consultation with legal experts as well as experts in mental healthcare and spread awareness on the issue of mental health," the bench said.
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