JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION, INDIA VOL. 21, 2022 The above analysis, if pursued, would be a clear case of missing the wood for the trees. The maxims of interpretation referred to in the previous paragraph do exist; however, they are dwarfed by the presumption that domestic law has to be read in harmony with international law. The aforesaid analysis of the MHCA shows that the MHCA has breached every principle of the CRPD. Any challenge to the MHCA could result in these provisions being struck down, especially when the preamble to MHCA claims that the statute was being enacted to fulfil India’s international obligations. That the MHCA does not meet the CRPD standard is also evident from the concluding observations of the CRPD Treaty Body on India’s initial report.30 The Committee is asking for the repeal of Section 4 of MHCA as also all provisions, which allow for substituted decision-making and involuntary psychiatric institutionalisation. The Committee has also asked for Sections 14 and 92 (f) of RPDA to be repealed as they allow for substituted decision-making. The basic difference between the two statutes being whilst the legal capacity provisions in RPDA need tweaking to be in harmony with CRPD, the MHCA has legislated the deprivation of legal capacity. In order to obtain a rounded picture of the law, it is also necessary to look at how have courts addressed the issue of legal capacity of persons with psycho-social disability. In State of West Bengal v Tathagatha Ghosh, 31 the Calcutta High Court upheld job reservations for persons with benchmark psycho-social disabilities and in Ravinder K. Dhariwal v Union of India,32 the Supreme Court insisted on the same job protection and rehabilitation for acquired psychosocial disability as is provided to other disabilities acquired during the course of employment. The courts in India are reading national legislations in harmony with the CRPD, which is causing legislative gaps to be judicially plugged. Insofar as the RPDA is a rights-based legislation, which has provided for the inclusion of persons with disabilities in all areas of life, it lends itself to a more progressive implementation of legal capacity in harmony with international law. Since courts are obliged to so read national law that it harmonises with international law, in my view, the RPDA construction of legal capacity as incorporated in Section 13 of the Act should guide the evolution of legal capacity jurisprudence in India. And Section 14 of the RPDA, which addresses the issue of guardianship needs to be struck down as 30 31 32 44 Concluding Observations on the Initial Report of India, OHCHR | CRPD/C/IND/CO/1: Concluding observations on the initial report of India (Advance Unedited Version) ( last visited 28 Oct. 2022) 2019 SCC Online Cal 3482. 2021 SCC Online SC 1293