HC directs Karnataka to constitute district mental health review boards

The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday directed the state government to constitute district mental health review boards as per the Mental Health Act 2017.

The court said the rules of the Mental Health Act 2017, drafted by the state, has to be ratified by the Centre in two months.

Dr Rajani M H, deputy director, Mental Health, Department of Health and Family Welfare, said, “We got the Finance Department’s approval for the constitution of the boards only a few days ago.”

Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey, who is the CEO of Karnataka State Mental Health Authority (KSMHA), said, “We have got the Finance Department approval for six districts. The approval for the rest of the districts is in process. We are also the first in the country working on having a mental health management portal in collaboration with IIIT-B and NIMHANS for registering and enlisting mental health establishments.”

In October last year, the court had found serious lacunae in implementing the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, in terms of constituting the review boards as it has vast powers in enforcing the purpose of the law.

The bench, at that time, had said that though the law prescribes holding of four meetings in a year, the state authority had not held a single meeting.

Pandey said, “Ideally, we are supposed to have four meetings, but we’ve had two meetings so far and are planning the third meeting this month.” As per the Act, the four main responsibilities of the Authority include registration of mental health establishments, periodic inspection of these establishments, publishing a registry of mental health professionals like psychologists, psychiatric social workers, psychiatric nurses and clinical psychiatrists.

Previously, the deputy commissioners of respective districts would issue licences to mental health establishments (MHEs) and inspect them. “Currently, there are 144 licensed MHEs in the state which have to re-apply for licences once they come under the purview of the authority,” Rajani said.

As far as publishing the registry of mental health professionals on KSMHA’s website is concerned, once the portal is ready, psychologists, psychiatric social workers and psychiatric nurses will be registered and clinical psychiatrists will be only ‘enlisted’ for the benefit of the public as they’re already registered with the Karnataka Medical
Council.