Chennai

The first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P D Audikesavalu noted that the State has in its counter indicated that the home at Melpakkam, in nerby Tiruvallur, was started to eliminate beggary and to rehabilitate beggars under the Tamil Nadu Beggary Prevention Act XIII of 1945. The home, established in 1954, is now highly dilapidated. The State should make every endeavour to renovate and restore the home and even invest in new construction in the open area so that the wandering mentally ill persons can be put up at such sites, the bench said. 

The bench was passing further interim orders on a PIL petition praying for a direction to provide shelter to the wandering mentally ill people and vaccinate them against Covid-19. 

It directed the government to file a report indicating the total number of mentally ill persons, who were not cared for in the State or who may be wandering and the extent to which such persons had been vaccinated. The report shall be filed when the matter appears next, a week after the vacation, on October 21, the bench added.

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