The PIL filed by advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal argues that despite Section 21 of Mental Health Care Act 2017 specifically stating it, followed by an IRDA order in August 2018, none of the insurance companies are complying with it.
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), the apex insurance regulatory body, to explain what steps it had taken to give effect to a statutory provision which mandates all insurance companies to provide insurance cover to mental illness just like any other physical illness.
Notices were issued to this effect to the Union Health Ministry as well on a petition filed by advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal, who’s also a mental health activist. Bansal argued that the Authority had failed to ensure that insurance companies provide insurance cover to mental illnesses despite a law providing for it.
He quoted Section 21(4) of the Mental Health Act, 2017, which provides for inclusion of mental illness insurance cover to back his claim. He submitted that this was creating a lot of hardships for the mentally ill.
A bench led by Justice R.F. Nariman then issued the notices and sought affidavits from the government and the insurance regulatory authority explaining why they had failed to take steps towards this. The affidavits will have to be filed before the next date of hearing.
The court order assumes significance as the lockdown amid the corona pandemic, health experts said, had led to a spike in mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.
Bansal’s petition argued that Parliament had in its wisdom treated mental illness on par with any other physical ailment and provided for insurance over for them on par with the physically ill. But insurance companies were not providing any such insurance cover to mental illnesses.
IRDA as the regulatory authority, the PIL suggested, was derelict in its duty in failing to ensure this. This was against the right to equality and non-discrimination guaranteed to all under the Constitution, the petition said.
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To back his arguments, he produced a RTI application in which the IRDA had conceded that none of the insurers had followed a directive issued to this effect on Aug 16, 2018. He accused the IRDA of not taking any immediate action to remedy the situation by penalising them for non-compliance.
Failure to do so was hampering the treatment and rehabilitation of thousands of persons suffering from such illnesses, it said.
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