The workshop on 'Acts relevant to mental health' organised by NIMHANS has sensitised the judicial officers on the laws regarding mental health and their implementation. The meet helped to review the current status of implementation of various Acts and recommended corrective action.

According to a panel of psychiatrists, led by Dr. Mohan Issac, professor of Psychiatry, NIMHANS the existing laws did not protect those suffering from mental illness.

Dr. D Nagaraja, director, and vice chancellor, NIMHANS said most often, mentally ill are penalised by courts, as judges do not get the whole picture of what the patients are suffering and what his abilities are despite mental disability. “In such cases, the mentally ill should be helped not punished and the judges have to go by the spirit of the law.”

The line between mental illness and well being is quite thin, said Dr. CR Chandrashekar, head department of psychiatry, NIMHANS.

Even as the courts define it as case of anyone requiring psychiatric treatment, mental health professionals define mental disorder as a combination of abnormal thoughts, emotions, behaviour and relationships lasting for more than 15 days. “We also take into account if it affects the patient's routine functions and if it has an effect on other people, said Dr. Chandrashekar.

The past two decades have seen changes in the mental health care in India. The Indian Lunacy Act 1912 was replaced with the Mental Health Act of 1987.The rules of the implementation of the Mental Health Act was made in 1993, its provisions, however everybody agreed yet to be realised in may parts. “For the first time in 1956, mentally ill were treated as persons with disabilities with the 'Persons with Disabilities' Act 1955”, pointed out Dr. Mohan Issac.

At any given time, 10-15 per cent of the population suffer from mental ill health and 90 percent of the people who go to NIMHANS get significant relief pointed out the panel of psychiatrists.

Recommendations of the workshop will be sent to the Central Mental Health Authority of India (CMHAI). The workshop was held because of the insistence of CMHAI who called for a closer interaction between the judiciary and the mental health professionals.

The participants were state judicial academies, judges of family courts, district and session judges and mental health professors from NIMHANS, judges from Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Tamil Nadu.