Dear Friends, Greetings from Vidya Sagar!
Pl find below a brief report on the discussion held yesterday (11th July 2012) on the banking rights of Persons with intellectual disabilities and Persons living with mental illnesses. Kindly share your inputs on the same. Do let us know if we could have a Stake holders meet on the same by 28th Saturday or 29th Sunday of this month. Pl get back on your preferred day/date by this week end. Vaishnavi, could you share the Know Your Customer policy of Banks with the group? Thanks & Regards Smitha.S.S *REPORT*: Vaishnavi Jayakumar, Rahul Cheriyan, Amba Salelkar, Dipti Bhatia, Dhanasekar.A, Shanthi.R and Smitha.S.S were part of the discussion. Smitha briefed about the issues faced by a group of young adults with Cerebral palsy and Mental retardation in opening a bank account on their own for availing loans for a self employment venture and the denial of banking rights for Persons living with Mental Illnesses. Amba described the provisions from the Master Circular of RBI Guidelines, specific to banking facilities for the elderly, sick, incapacitated persons and persons with Visual Impairment, Access to physical disabilities, banking for persons with intellectual disabilities through guardianship from Local Level Committees as referred by the National Trust Act and for persons with mental health issues through guardianship processed under the District Magistrate. Rahul elaborated the process of contract between an individual and a bank; that it is a consensus between the two parties and there would not be a consensus in case of a person with an unsound mind; Legal capacity is assumed to be, for all citizens at and above the age of 18, unless it is proved otherwise; RBI Guidelines reflect default Legal Capacity for persons with Visual Impairment and physical disabilities; whereas it requires guardianship for persons with National Trust Disabilities and Persons with Mental Illness. Further discussions were held on the provisions of the National Trust Act, which gives room for the execution of legal capacity, without guardianship, for persons with 4 National Trust disabilities. The eligibility of a person living with mental illness, who has an understanding about the contract, to sign a contract was made clear from the provisions of the contract act, which only requires an understanding of the contract at the time of signing the contract.These provisions had been perverted in the RBI Guidelines, denying legal capacity for persons with intellectual disabilities and mental illnesses. It was therefore decided to study the Know your Customer Policy of the Banks and that certain regulations are formulated for this purpose. The group emerged with the following ideas to obtain banking facilities for persons with intellectual disabilities / mental illness at ease: 1. 1. Banks to have a small questionnaire that is a simple test of understanding of the client with respect to the contract being made. 2. 2. If dissatisfied, the client could be attended by an in-house panel equipped with professionals on mental health and intellectual disabilities. 3. 3. Branch manager could refer the client for an assessment to Local Level Committees or Mental health Networks, the payment for services being taken care by the banks. 4. 4. Any client with Mental Illness / Intellectual disabilities, who have a proof of other transactions/contracts currently on use, need not undergo the 2nd and 3rd processes. The group felt the need to organize a Stake holders meet to evolve new ideas, formulations to enable easy access of banking facilities for persons with intellectual disabilities and mental illnesses. The criterion of the meet shall be as follows: · Disabled people to get easy access to banking · No discretion to be allowed on the part of the bank/bank authorities · To introduce new recommendations to RBI guidelines The discussion came to a close with an agreement to hold the stake holders meet at the earliest. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mental Health Advocacy (News 'N Views) India" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/MhaNewsViewsIndia?hl=en ------------- Affiliated Groups : MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY INDIA [email protected] Discussions on mental health law / policy / plan monitoring / human rights etc [email protected] India-specific news and views related to mental health [email protected] Information and support to carers of people with mental health issues [email protected] Mutual support and sharing of experiential knowledge, skills and social learning amongst peers
