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.
