Mumbai, Jun 8 The Bombay High Court on Monday ordered the Maharashtra government to pay Rs 22 lakh compensation to the wife of a man who was killed at Pune’s Yerwada Mental Hospital by another patient in November 2013.
The court said the state had failed to take sufficient care of the patients at the facility.
There was “gross negligence” on the part of the authorities at the mental hospital, which led to the incident, the court said, also holding that the deceased was in the care and custody of the state authorities, as the government runs the hospital.
A bench of Justices Manish Pitale and Shreeram Shirsat termed the incident “ghastly and unfortunate”.
“The State failed in its duty to take care and failed in its public duty, resulting in violation of fundamental rights. The case demonstrates the grossly negligent manner in which the state authorities were managing affairs at the hospital,” the HC said.
The court noted that on the night of the incident, as conceded by the state government, while there were 72 patients in the observation room, there were only three attendants on duty.
“It is obvious that the strength of the attendants was woefully inadequate, apart from the fact that it violated the minimum facilities for patients in the mental hospital,” the HC said.
The bench said the authorities at the facility ought to have ensured that patients with violent tendencies were segregated from the other patients in the observation ward.
“This was the basic minimum expected from the concerned officers of the Yerwada Mental Hospital. Failure to do so led to the incident, where two persons died,” the court said.
The high court passed the order on a petition filed by the woman and her two children seeking compensation from the government, claiming that her 52-year-old husband died while in the care and custody of the Yerwada Mental Hospital after being assaulted by another patient.
The petition claimed gross negligence on the part of the officials at the state-run facility, which resulted in the incident, and demanded compensation of Rs 29 lakh.
As per the plea, the deceased, a real estate agent, suffered from bouts of schizophrenia and was being treated for the mental illness.
Later, he was admitted to the Yerwada Mental Hospital when his mental condition deteriorated in November 2013.
Two days after he was admitted, his wife was informed that the man had been killed by another inmate, who had become violent.
The government informed the HC that it had paid a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to the victim’s family in 2018.
As per the government, two patients died in the incident. On that night, 72 patients were in the observation ward of the mental hospital, but there were only three attendants on duty.
The government claimed that a FIR was also registered against the attacker, but the case is in abeyance as he is mentally unsound.
The bench said the compensation amount shall be paid to the petitioner within eight weeks.
