National

‘Mere abnormality no ground for exoneration’

New Delhi: A man charged with an offence cannot claim protection on grounds of ‘insanity’ if he was suffering from a mere abnormality of mind or partial delusion, irresistible impulse or compulsive behaviour of a psychopath at the time of commission of the offence, the Supreme Court has held.

Under Section 84 of the Indian Penal Code, a person is exonerated on the ground of unsoundness of mind if he/she, at the time of doing an act, is either incapable of knowing its nature or that he/she is doing what is either wrong or contrary to law.

A Bench consisting of Justices Arijit Pasayat and Mukundakam Sharma said: “Section 84 lays down the legal test of responsibility of unsoundness of mind. There is no definition of unsoundness of mind in the IPC.

“Courts have, however, mainly treated an expression as equivalent to insanity.

“A distinction is to be made between legal insanity and medical insanity. A court is concerned with legal insanity and not with medical insanity.”

Writing the judgment, Justice Pasayat said: “In all cases, where previous insanity is proved or admitted, certain considerations have to be borne in mind, viz. whether there was deliberation and preparation for the act; whether it was done in a manner which showed a desire to concealment; whether, after the crime, the offender showed consciousness of guilt and made efforts to avoid detection and whether, after arrest, he offered false excuses and made false statements.”

The Bench said: “There are four kinds of persons who may be said to be non compos mentis [not of sound mind]: an idiot; one made non compos by illness; a lunatic or a mad man and 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.”

The benefit of Section 84 IPC would be available only after it was proved that at the time of committing the act, the accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from a disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of what he did.

“Mere absence of motive for a crime, howsoever atrocious, cannot, in the absence of plea and proof of legal insanity, bring the case within this Section.”

In the instant case, a sessions court in Jalgaon in Maharashtra sentenced Siddhapal Kamal Yadav to life imprisonment for murder. The Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court confirmed the sentence. In his appeal against this judgment, Yadav claimed protection under Section 84 IPC contending that the nature of his act clearly showed that he was of unsound mind and did not know about its consequence. Dismissing the appeal and confirming the life sentence, the apex court said doctors’ evidence showed that the appellant’s plea of unsound mind had no substance.

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