No sacking schizophrenic workers: HC

Malathy Iyer / TNN / Nov 16, 2005, 02:45 IST

Share

AA

Text Size

Small
Medium
Large

Bombay high court has ruled that employees who develop mental ailments cannot be terminated from service on that basis.

MUMBAI: Giving a boost to the rights of the mentally ill, the Bombay high court has ruled that employees who develop mental ailments cannot be terminated from service on that basis.
Upholding Section 47 of the Disability Act which deals with non-discrimination, a bench of Justices A P Shah and D Y Chandrachud ruled that the authorities should either shift the employee concerned to another post with the same payscale and service benefits or create a supernumerary post until a suitable post is available.

The order, delivered on August 5, followed a petition filed by Ashwini Desai against the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj General Hospital in Solapur. Desai worked as a staff nurse in the hospital from August 16, 1980 and developed schizophrenia around October 1999.
According to Gopal Deshpande, who is the chariman of the empowerment and employment committee of an NGO, Maitri, which works with schizophrenia patients, "The judgment is a major boost for people working for the rights of the mentally ill."
He says that persons who suffer from schizophrenia�� an illness characterised by delusions and popularly termed as split personality disorder��are normal 99% of the time if they take treatment and are capable of applying their mind.
In Desai's case, she was asked to leave the job on January 4, 2003 on the ground that she was suffering from chronic schizophrenia.