Girl taken forcibly to mental hosp: HC for action on cops, docs
Abhinav.Garg@timesgroup.com 19.04.2018
New Delhi: Invoking the Supreme Court verdicts on right to privacy and the Hadiya case, the Delhi high court on Wednesday reunited a 23-year-old woman with her music teacher and ordered strict action against cops, doctors of a private mental hospital and an ambulance service who connived with her parents to abduct her and confine her in hospital.
The HC brushed aside strong opposition from the woman’s father, who claimed she was mentally unsound, and allowed her to return to live with the music teacher and his wife who had taught her since she was 11.
A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and C Hari Shankar noted that the plea before the court was that the woman should be protected against coercive retributive action of her parents for making personal life choices.
The court also ordered an inquiry against policemen of Malviya Nagar station who helped the parents, pointing out that “when a group of persons barges into a house, pins down a person forcibly, injects her with a sedative, and tries to take her away in an ambulance, a policeman cannot possibly be under the bona fide belief that all this was done in her best interest.”
Appalled at the widespread connivance of police, doctors and ambulance service with the parents, HC also awarded the girl, dubbed Z, compensation to be paid by each of these persons who violated her “fundamental rights to life, liberty and the right to dignity enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution.”
The court found serious lapses by the Cosmos Institute of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences (CIMBS), Delhi Psychiatry Centre, a private mental health facility in the city which admitted the woman against her wishes.
It asked the Medical Council of India to take action against Dr Sunil Mittal, Dr Sameer Kalani and Dr Raj Mishra of CIMBS, for “serious breach of the law and professional ethics.”
HC was also surprised at the role of Almas Ambulance Service in which Z was bundled off by her parents from the music teacher’s house with help of the cops. HC found the owner of the service, Abdul Gaffar, was an Ayurveda practitioner. It directed the Delhi government to immediately cancel the ambulance service’s licence.
Abhinav.Garg@timesgroup.com 19.04.2018
New Delhi: Invoking the Supreme Court verdicts on right to privacy and the Hadiya case, the Delhi high court on Wednesday reunited a 23-year-old woman with her music teacher and ordered strict action against cops, doctors of a private mental hospital and an ambulance service who connived with her parents to abduct her and confine her in hospital.
The HC brushed aside strong opposition from the woman’s father, who claimed she was mentally unsound, and allowed her to return to live with the music teacher and his wife who had taught her since she was 11.
A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and C Hari Shankar noted that the plea before the court was that the woman should be protected against coercive retributive action of her parents for making personal life choices.
The court also ordered an inquiry against policemen of Malviya Nagar station who helped the parents, pointing out that “when a group of persons barges into a house, pins down a person forcibly, injects her with a sedative, and tries to take her away in an ambulance, a policeman cannot possibly be under the bona fide belief that all this was done in her best interest.”
Appalled at the widespread connivance of police, doctors and ambulance service with the parents, HC also awarded the girl, dubbed Z, compensation to be paid by each of these persons who violated her “fundamental rights to life, liberty and the right to dignity enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution.”
The court found serious lapses by the Cosmos Institute of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences (CIMBS), Delhi Psychiatry Centre, a private mental health facility in the city which admitted the woman against her wishes.
It asked the Medical Council of India to take action against Dr Sunil Mittal, Dr Sameer Kalani and Dr Raj Mishra of CIMBS, for “serious breach of the law and professional ethics.”
HC was also surprised at the role of Almas Ambulance Service in which Z was bundled off by her parents from the music teacher’s house with help of the cops. HC found the owner of the service, Abdul Gaffar, was an Ayurveda practitioner. It directed the Delhi government to immediately cancel the ambulance service’s licence.
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