The Bombay High Court has imposed exemplary costs of Rs 5 lakh on Jitendra Megh for filing an intra-court appeal challenging the dismissal of his plea to refer his 78-year-old father, Gorakh Megh, to the Mental Health Review Board under Section 105 of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017. The division bench comprising Justice Ajay Gadkari and Justice Kamal Khata held that the appeal constituted an abuse of the judicial process and was motivated by ulterior motives related to an ongoing property dispute.
The bench noted that Jitendra had initially approached a single judge in February 2026 seeking the referral of his father to the Mental Health Review Board to ascertain his mental health. The single judge, Justice Farhan Dubash, had dismissed the plea, observing that Section 105 of the Mental Healthcare Act could not be used as a litigation weapon. Aggrieved by this order, Jitendra filed an intra-court appeal before the division bench.
Upon examining the appeal, the division bench found that Jitendra had already filed a suit before the High Court concerning the partition of ancestral property. The bench observed that the timing and nature of the mental health assessment plea appeared to be linked to this property dispute, with the son seeking to pressure his aged father into relinquishing his claims.
The bench further considered the medical certificate submitted by Jitendra, which indicated that the father suffered from diabetes and experienced hypoglycaemic episodes following insulin administration, leading to transient symptoms such as delusions, confusion, forgetfulness, and perspiration. However, the court noted that these symptoms were temporary in nature and resolved upon restoration of normal blood glucose levels, and therefore did not constitute a basis for invoking Section 105 of the Mental Healthcare Act.
The bench emphasised that Jitendra had admitted he was not a medical expert and had not relied on any independent medical opinion to support his claim. This, the court stated, reinforced its view that the appeal was not made in good faith but was instead a malicious attempt to harass an elderly father suffering from age-related ailments.
In its order, the bench stated that the appeal was 'nothing short of an afterthought and a malicious proceeding invoked to drag Gorakh, who is around 78 years old into several proceedings so that he would give up and succumb to Jitendra's demands.' It added that such conduct by a son against his aged father could not be tolerated under any circumstances and deserved severe reprimand.
The court held that Section 105 of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 is intended to operate as a shield for the protection of persons with mental illness and cannot be permitted to be wielded as a sword against them by an adversarial party. It concurred with the single judge's view that the provision was being misused in the present case.
Accordingly, the division bench dismissed the appeal and imposed exemplary costs of Rs 5 lakh to be paid by Jitendra Megh to his father, Gorakh Megh. The bench stated that realistic costs must be imposed to ensure that wrongdoers are denied any profit or advantage from frivolous litigation and that the costs would act as a deterrent against initiating similar proceedings in the future.