SC refuses urgent hearing on release of ‘normal’ patients from mental hospital

A Vacation Bench of Justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and L Nageswara Rao said there was no urgency and the matter could be taken up after the summer break of the Apex Court this month-end. The Bench also asked petitioner advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal why he had not approached the High Court in this regard.

Bansal said he had approached the Apex Court as there were around 60 patients in the Mental Hospital, Bareilly, who are normal and fit for discharge, and among them were several who were from different states, including Kerala.

The Bench has listed the matter for hearing after the summer vacation, which ends on June 28.

In his plea, the petitioner said he had filed applications under the Right to Information Act in three mental hospitals of UP, seeking information on patients, who are normal and fit for discharge.

  He claimed to have taken legal interviews of some of the patients admitted in the Bareilly hospital and found them to be normal as other human beings.