The Bombay High Court has appointed two daughters as guardians of their 73-year-old bedridden father, who suffered brain damage during a cardiac arrest in 2024 and is now unable to care for himself or manage his property.
Bombay: The Bombay High Court has recently allowed two daughters to become the legal guardians of their 73-year-old father, who has been bedridden and semi-conscious ever since he suffered a brain injury during a cardiac arrest in 2024.
The father is unable to speak, take care of himself, or even manage his own property.
The order was passed by a bench of Justice Abhay Ahuja on May 8, and a copy of the judgment became publicly available on Wednesday. While granting the plea, the High Court observed that it could not stay silent in the face of such real-life distress.
“The higher courts of our country exercise the ‘parens patriae’ jurisdiction (legal protector of citizens unable to protect themselves) as they cannot be mute spectators to a real life situation of the nature before this Court,” said Justice Ahuja.
Background
As per the petition filed by the daughters, the elderly man suffered a cardiac arrest in 2024, which led to a lack of oxygen and blood supply to the brain. This caused serious brain damage. Since then, he has remained in a semi-conscious and incapacitated state, completely bedridden and unable to communicate or even take care of his most basic needs.
Initially, the daughters filed their petition under the Guardian and Wards Act, a law that allows guardians to be appointed only for the welfare of minors. But later, they modified their plea and asked the court to use Clause XVII of the Letters Patent, a legal provision that gives High Courts special powers in such matters.
The Letters Patent is a special set of legal rules under which the High Court functions. Clause XVII gives the High Court authority to deal with the personal and financial matters of “infants, idiots and lunatics”—archaic terms historically used in legal contexts to describe people who are unable to care for themselves or manage their own property due to mental or physical incapacity.
Justice Ahuja explained the reason behind invoking this clause.
“Lunacy refers to unsoundness of mind sufficient to incapacitate a person from civil transactions. It can also refer to a mental disorder as described in the definition of mental illness,” he said.
He further observed:
“Such mental illness where the person is incapable of taking care of himself or managing his assets, can be said to be a ‘state of lunacy’ and hence under the Letters Patent, the high court would have authority and jurisdiction with respect to the person and the estate of such a ‘lunatic’.”
The High Court also referred to the Mental Healthcare Act, which defines mental illness as a serious disorder in thinking, decision-making, or judgment that makes a person unable to meet normal day-to-day demands of life.
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The court carefully clarified that this case was not about mental retardation, but a mental illness caused by medical trauma.
“The court in its order noted that the man was unable to understand or take informed decisions, and that he requires constant care and attention.”
“This was definitely not a case of mental retardation. However, it can be said that this is a case of mental illness although the same may have arisen as a result of a cardiac arrest,” the High Court said.
While delivering the verdict, Justice Ahuja highlighted the importance of judicial intervention in such humanitarian cases.
He firmly stated:
“Courts cannot remain a mute spectator to such situations.”
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