Residents of mental health care facilities can vote unless declared as disqualified: HC

The Kerala High Court has held that residents of mental health rehabilitation centres can vote in elections, unless declared as disqualified by a competent court.

Stating that persons with mental health issues and those with intellectual disabilities too are citizens of the country, a Bench of Justice P.V. Kunhikrishnan dismissed a plea that such persons were incompetent to cast their votes as per their free will.

Without evidence, courts cannot presume that inmates of such centres are “mentally challenged persons or suffer from mental health issues”. Section 4 of the Mental Health Care Act, 2017 says that every person, including those with mental health issues, shall be deemed to have the capacity to make decisions regarding their mental health care or treatment, if such person has the abilities mentioned in sub clauses (a) to (c) of that Section.

The court was acting on a petition filed by two persons from Kottayam who said that voters who are currently in a rehabilitation centre for persons with intellectual disabilities are unable to cast their votes according to their will, and hence their votes must be kept in a separate electronic voting machine and recorded digitally, in the impending local body elections.

“No documents are produced to show that they are mentally challenged or have a mental illness. They are not even a party in this writ petition, at least in a representative capacity. What an insult to those persons who are said to be in a rehabilitation centre,” the court said.

It added that “mental illness is not a sin, and that it can happen to anyone. All of us, in one way or another, have experienced mental disturbance. Some are hot tempered, some arrogant, some inhumane, some derive pleasure from the misfortune of others, some enjoy physical confrontations with others, some are jealous of others, and some take pleasure in cruelty toward humans or animals. All these are the varying mental conditions of different individuals. These are more dangerous than the mental illness defined in Section 2(s) of the Act of 2017.”

Mental health issues can be managed with proper medication and some patience in treatment. “We have to take care of those people. The petitioners can visit that rehabilitation centre and give motivation to them instead of denying them their voting rights,” the court said.