Court orders psychiatric test for life convict

The fate of a youth facing life imprisonment for murder will be decided by the Hospital for Mental Health in Vadodara. A division bench of the Gujarat high court has ordered that he be sent there for psychiatric evaluation and that the hospital report back on his mental status.

Abbas Ibrahim Biradar, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a local court in Bharuch in 2003, had filed an appeal against the sentence in the high court. During the hearing of the plea, advocate SK Bukhari, representing Biradar, said his 26-year-old client could not be convicted because of his unsound mental status, while also submitting a report from a private psychiatric clinic.

Biradar was subsequently released on bail and is undergoing treatment as an in-house patient of the Hospital for Mental Health. In its order, a bench comprising justices Jayant Patel and RJ Shukla directed the superintendent of the hospital to report on whether Biradar was suffering from chronic schizophrenia, whether the disease was curable and, if yes, within what time. "The court ordered a psychiatric evaluation after I moved an application regarding his mental health," Bukhari said. Biradar will be produced in court on June 23 after completion of the tests at the Hospital for Mental Health.

According to case details, Biradar had murdered his neighbour with a sharp weapon following a scuffle over the building wall near their homes.

It is pertinent to note that a sessions court of Bhavnagar district had last year discharged one Bhupat Kanji Koli, who had been suffering from a mental illness and could not be cured despite treatment rendered by the Hospital for Mental Health over a period of 18 years.