New Delhi: The Delhi government on Wednesday told the
Delhi High Court that it has issued guidelines to the Tihar
Jail authorities to deal with the mentally ill prisoners who
have been languishing in jail and more prone to suicide.
The government's Standing Counsel Najmi Waziri told a
division bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv
Khanna that the senior officers of Tihar jail held a meeting
with the experts from Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied
Services (IHBAS) on March 7 and the guidelines were prepared.
According to the proposed guidelines, the jail
authorities should act promptly and refer the prisoners to
IHBAS for treatment soon after he/she was found homicidal
behaviour or the tendency to commit suicide.
All prisoners with common mental disorder, anxiety
disorder, suffering from depression, problems of drug abuse
and also the Tihar inmates with issues of repeated deliberate
self-harm, self-injuries behaviour should be assessed by the
mental health unit of the central jail and they should be
immediately referred to IHBAS for evaluation and treatment.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, March 09, 2011, 22:26