SC seeks reply from J&K on jailed Dutch national’s plea for proper medical treatment

The Supreme Court has sought the response of the Jammu and Kashmir administration to a plea filed by a Dutch national, lodged in a jail in Jammu and suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, seeking direction to the authorities for providing him proper medical treatment for his ailment at a specialised hospital.

The petitioner, 53-year-old Richard De Wit, who was arrested in April 2013 in Srinagar in connection with a murder case and is currently lodged in Jammu district jail, has said in his plea that he has been in jail for nearly 10 years and his medical condition is deteriorating as no proper medical treatment for the disease is available in the prison.

His plea came up for hearing before a bench of Justices V Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal on Friday.