The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked all the states and Union Territories to consider fixing a timeline for vaccinating the inmates lodged in mental healthcare homes against Covid-19 and sought a status report by October 15.
A three-judge bench presided over by Justice D Y Chandrachud favoured laying down the schedule for vaccination of those lodged in mental care homes along with health care workers in such institutions.
Hearing a plea by lawyer Gaurav Kumar Bansal, the top court gave six months to states and UTs for taking steps to establish halfway homes for rehabilitation of those cured of mental illness. It also said the authorities must ensure the inmates were not relocated to old age or beggar homes and they should designate proper facilities in the meantime.
The court accepted a suggestion by Additional Solicitor General Madhavi Divan and directed all the states and UTs to set up an online dashboard within four weeks with information on mental health patients and details of those cured of the illness, halfway homes, rehabilitation etc.
It asked the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to provide a format of the dashboard to the states for updating the data in a real-time and seamless manner.
During the hearing, the court expressed its shock that the Uttar Pradesh government has relocated just 51 such patients out of 320 cured ones. Maharashtra government counsel informed the court that it had identified seven NGOs for shifting 186 mentally cured patients.