THE ACTIVIST ROLE OF THE SUPREME COURT IN SAFEGUARDING MENTAL HEALTH OF DEATH ROW CONVICTS IN INDIA

Abstract

The notion of mental health has occupied a dominant place in the national and international deliberations on the health and safety of prisoners. The mental health concept has beenpredominantly a western liberal concept which has come to be widely accepted by the rest of the world. Though India has got acquainted with this concept in a formal way at a later stage, it has been at the forefront in imbibing the very ethos of the concept of psychological well-being in the form of safeguarding human essence and dignity. From a sociological point of view, the psychological health concept ensures that an individual living in a society will be guaranteed the basic necessities of life including physical and mental well-being. However, for proper realization of individualrights, it is essential that the society as a whole accepts the basic norms of individual’s rights and that the rule of law is guaranteed. The long incarceration periods spent by the death row convicts and the vast powers given to the police for keeping them in custody until their execution are to be exercised keeping in view the civilized norms endured for the protection of human dignity which is now inviolable and well entrenched in the Constitutional guarantee of human rights under Article 21 of the Constitution. In view of the evolving standards and the safeguards against the physical and mental health of the prisoners, the study of the subject assumes significance both for the regulation and articulation of the arbitrary exercise of power by police and for the maintenance and upholding of rights of the death row prisoners. The present research makes an attempt to analyse the role played by the Apex Court and the need for the protection of mental health of death row prisoners especially in the light of enlightened norms of fundamental rights evolved by the higher judiciary.