Court orders RPF jawan to be readmitted to Thane mental hospital

Dismissed RPF jawan Chetan Singh Chaudhary, who is currently in the Thane Central Jail, did a four-month stint in the Regional Mental Hospital in Thane last year

MUMBAI: The Sessions Court has ordered that Chetan Singh Chaudhary, the dismissed RPF jawan charged with shooting his senior officer and three Muslim passengers on the Jaipur-Mumbai Superfast Express on July 31, 2023, be admitted to the Thane Mental Hospital.

Dismissed RPF jawan Chetan Singh Chaudhary

Chaudhary, who is currently in the Thane Central Jail, did a four-month stint in the Regional Mental Hospital in Thane last year, after the Akola Central Jail authorities found his behaviour odd.

The current order was delivered on Wednesday, when the court ordered the superintendent, Thane Central Jail, to refer and admit Chaudhary to the Regional Mental Hospital, Thane, “for better management and care and treatment till further order”.

The hospital has been asked to send fortnightly reports regarding his treatment and mental health, “with specific opinion as to whether he is fit to stand trial and capable of conducting his defence.’’

The current order follows oral arguments made on March 2 by his lawyer, Pankaj Ghildiyal, asking for bail due to Chaudhary’s alleged unstable mental condition.

In December 2025, Chaudhary was examined by the Thane prison hospital, also on the orders of the court, soon after his second bail application was filed. The hospital’s report submitted to the court described his condition as “stable’’, with all his physical parameters normal.

However, after that, a new judge was assigned the case, and the bail application was argued before him on March 2. On March 10, the judge ordered that the Thane jail authorities submit a report on Chaudhary’s behaviour in jail by March 25. However, no such report has been submitted.

Except for the latest hearing held on Wednesday, Chaudhary has been attending court regularly over the last month, sporting a beard and long hair.

Both in the bail application and his oral arguments, Chaudhary’s lawyer referred to his client’s four-month long stay in the Thane mental hospital last year. Chaudhary was admitted there on orders of the Akola Government Hospital, after the Akola Central Jail, where Chaudhary was then lodged, found his behaviour odd. He was discharged in June, with the discharge papers describing him as “cooperative, communicative, oriented to time, place and person’’.

Chaudhary’s first bail application, filed soon after his arrest in 2023, also cited mental instability as the ground for bail. However, it was rejected by the court in December 2023. The court said that the record, eyewitness statements and the words uttered by him when he committed the crime revealed that he “committed the murder of four persons when he was on duty being the public servant by uttering communal words towards the deceased… that show (he) was in well-settled position and mind to commit the murder of the persons of the particular community’’.

Significantly, in his bail arguments, Chaudhary’s lawyer had not asked that he be readmitted to the Thane mental hospital.