Imagine yourself dealing with a case where your client has been accused of murder. The Prosecution story states that your client was found with the murder weapon in his hand when the police arrived having been sitting calmly in front of the deceased for hours and showing no emotion whatsoever. Further, when the cops appeared, your client made no effort whatsoever to flee.
Now if you are wondering what plea you would take to get him out of the impending noose, and you have finally decided to do the ‘idiot’ argument, you may continue to read…
Nothing is an offence which is done by a person who, at the time of doing it, by reason of unsoundness of mind, is incapable of knowing the nature of the act, or that he is doing what is either wrong or contrary to law.(Section 84 of the Indian Penal Code)
Section 84 lays down the legal test of responsibility in cases of alleged unsoundness of mind but the Indian Penal Code does not go on to define "unsoundness of mind". The Courts have, however, essentially treated this expression equivalent to insanity, a term itself, which again has no precise definition but which is usually used to describe varying degrees of mental disorder. Thus, every person, who is mentally diseased, is not ipso facto exempted from criminal liability. There is a distinction between legal insanity and medical insanity. The Supreme Court in the case of Hari Singh Gond , reported in 2008(12)SCALE102, Court categorically states that a court is concerned with legal insanity, and not with medical insanity. The Court was dealing with an Appeal from the High Court of Madhya Pradesh where Hari Singh Gond was accused of murdering his grandfather-in-law and in the trial he claimed innocence on the grounds of idiocy and sought protection under Section 84 of the Indian Penal Code. The Bench affirmed the lower court and High Court orders convicting Gond for the murder.
There are four kinds of persons who may be said to be not of sound mind (non compos mentis), i.e.,
(2) one made non compos by illness
(3) a lunatic or a mad man and
(4.) one who is drunk.
An idiot is one who is of non-sane memory from his birth, by a perpetual infirmity, without lucid intervals; and those are said to be idiots who cannot count twenty, or tell the days of the week, or who do not know their fathers or mothers, or the like,
A person made non compos mentis by illness is excused in criminal cases from such acts as are- committed while under the influence of his disorder.
A lunatic is one who is afflicted by mental disorder only at certain periods and vicissitudes, having intervals of reason.
Madness is permanent. Lunacy and madness are spoken of as acquired insanity, and idiocy as natural insanity.
Under Section 84, IPC, a person is exonerated from liability for doing an act on the ground of unsoundness of mind if he, at the time of doing the act, is either incapable of knowing
(a) the nature of the act, or
(b) that he is doing what is either wrong or contrary to law.
Section 84 embodies the fundamental maxim of criminal law, i.e., actus non reum facit nisi mens sit rea" (an act does not constitute guilt unless done with a guilty intention). In order to constitute an offence, the intent and act must concur; but in the case of insane persons, no culpability is fastened on them as they have no free will (furios is nulla voluntas est).
Stephen in `History of the Criminal Law of England, Vo. II, page 166 has observed that if a person cuts off the head of a sleeping man because it would be great fun to see him looking for it when he woke up, would obviously be a case where the perpetrator of the act would be incapable of knowing the physical effects of his act. The law recognizes nothing but incapacity to realise the nature of the act and presumes that where a man's mind or his faculties of ratiocination are sufficiently dim to apprehend what he is doing, he must always be presumed to intend the consequence of the action he takes. Mere absence of motive for a crime, howsoever atrocious it may be, cannot in the absence of plea and proof of legal insanity, bring the case within this section
Mere abnormality of mind or
partial delusion,
irresistible impulse or
compulsive behaviour of a psychopath
affords no protection under Section 84 as the law contained in that section is still squarely based on the outdated Naughton rules of 19th Century England. The provisions of Section 84 are in substance the same as that laid down in the answers of the Judges to the questions put to them by the House of Lords, in M Naughton's case (1843) 4 St. Tr. (NS) 847.
The mere fact that an accused is conceited, odd irascible and his brain is not quite all right, or that the physical and mental ailments from which he suffered had rendered his intellect weak and had affected his emotions and will, or that he had committed certain unusual acts, in the past or that he was liable to recurring fits of insanity at short intervals, or that he was subject to getting epileptic fits but there was nothing abnormal in his behaviour, or that his behaviour was queer, cannot be sufficient to attract the application of this section.
Short, crisp and definite as a decision should be.
However, when it says “or the like” it does leave some room for imagination and argument.