A bench of the Madras High Court comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthikumar Ramamoorthy, while hearing a plea seeking direction on the effective implementation of the State mental health policy, directed the Tamil Nadu Government to ensure special vaccination drive with the aim to priorities the vaccination of mentally ill persons.

Taking note of the second surge of the deadly pandemic, the Court observed that the Government will have to undertake the work of providing relief and rehabilitation to families that have lost their bread earners and persons whose businesses have been completely devastated. The court suggested the Government to adopt and utilize its policy of mobile teams to travel to the person with disabilities rather than make them come to the center to get vaccinated.

The Court, taking note of the people abandoned by their families, instructed the government to take care of the vaccination of such people at local, municipal and should be taken care of by the corporations and panchayats on priority basis and directed the government to take care of the vaccination of the people suffering from a mental illness who may be homebound or restricted in their movement within the next four weeks.

The Court, to this end, directed the state to file its counter-affidavit to the larger aspects regarding all the residents of the State who may be mentally ill are accorded the basic human dignity that they are entitled to and the larger society takes care of such vulnerable section.