NAME: SHRUSHTI KOLHE
COURSE: BBA LLB
SEMESTER: 3RD SEMESTER
COLLEGE: ARMY LAW COLLEGE, PUNE
INSANITY AS A DEFENCE UNDER
THE INDIAN PENAL CODE
ABSTRACT
Just imagine a scenario where you have been attacked
by a lunatic in aggression. In his psychosis, he kills you. Now comes the
mind-boggling-sensitive question: ON THE GROUNDS OF “DEFENCE OF INSANITY”
THE LUNATIC WON’T BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE MURDER, THEN WHO IS YOUR REAL KILLER,
WHO WILL TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR DEATH?
Cases of
“INSANITY AS A DEFENCE” are still an unsolved mystery in the parameters of law
because we don’t know who to blame for the crime. Perhaps insanity can be used
as a tool to get away with crime. Going back to the history of this word, we’ll
see that insanity is evolved from a creature of medicine to a creature of law
and the journey was not completed in one night. This article focuses on various
aspects of the “defence of insanity” in the Indian court.
INTRODUCTION
“Defence of insanity” cases demand careful analysis by
the keepers of law. It refers to a defence that a defendant pleads in the
criminal court stating that he was not of sound mind at the time of the crime.
Our courts hold the responsibility to punish the guilty and safeguard the
innocent. Therefore, punishing a person who is not accountable for a crime
would shake the faith of people in the justice system. Thus, the court must
take every step carefully.
HISTORY OF INSANITY AS A DEFENCE
Insanity as a
defence is a way long factum. In ancient history, insanity was linked with
demonic possession or possession by an evil spirit or curse from a supernatural
being. They were often called “lunatic” because lunatic is derived from the
Latin word Luna and Luna means moon. There’s an old saying, that insanity is
caused due to a full moon at the time of birth of a child or a child sleeping
under the moonlight of a full moon. People at that time tried to help the body
to be free from the demonic possession by the practice of trephining, they use
to believe that the body is innocent but the mind is possessed by the demon, so
they chipped holes in the victim’s skull to release the demon. After a long
period of time, people started believing that insanity is caused due to
disorder of the nervous system and it should be cured by medicine. It took
centuries for people to change their viewpoint from “skull drills” to “happy
pills”. There is a classical belief that: “even if he was under the shadow of God and could not
extricate between good and evil, and did not know about his act, though he
committed the greatest offense, yet he could not be guilty of any sin against
any law whatsoever”.
MEANING OF INSANITY
The
term insanity has no concrete explanation in law. Insane, lunatic, mad, crazy are such words that people
typically use for the one who cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot
conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or
are subject to wild impulsive behaviour. The
word insanity originates from the Latin word insanitatem, meaning
"unhealthfulness of mind”.
Our law is based on a fundamental
belief that “no harm to the innocent” then how can our courts punish the person
who doesn’t even know what he/she is doing. It will be against natural justice.
Therefore, the Indian penal code comes up with section 84 as a general
exception to safeguard the innocent.
A
person is held guilty for the crime if he satisfies two conditions;
1) Actus
reus- the person’s action should be guilty.
2) Mens
rea – the person with his free will and guilty mind was involved.
Which is collectively called “Actus Non Facit Reum Nisi Mens Sit Rea” which
means an act does not make a person accountable till the time it is done with a
guilty mind. Both guilty act and intent to do that guilty act has to be there.
Insanity falls under general exceptions because it is a mental condition that
makes a person incompetent to understand the possible consequences and nature
of the act. To be benefitted from this exception, one has to prove that
insanity was of such an extent that it made the person completely incompetent
of knowing the consequences. If a person acts insane sometimes and the other
time, he knows the nature of his act, then, in that case, the Court will decide
on the facts and circumstances of the case whether he was capable of knowing
the consequences and nature of the acts when he committed it or not.
SECTION
84 OF IPC
Section 84 states that “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 wrong or contrary to
law”. The word insanity is not used here
because drafters of IPC thought that this word will create loopholes as it is
not well defined, so they preferred calling “unsound mind”. This section is based upon the “McNaughton’s Rule”.
According to this rule, a defendant is assumed to be sane unless the contrary
is proved, he is having a defect of reasoning so he was unaware of the nature
of the crime.
Types of insanity
Insanity is of many types but from a century back people
have seen a difference between medical insanity and legal insanity.
1)
Medical insanity
This insanity is a type of mental disease in the brain or nervous system
leading to the abnormal working of brain function. There are four categories of
unsound mind:
a)
Idiot – a person who is of unsound
mind by birth
b)
Lunatic- a person who gets triggered
by a mental disorder only for a certain period.
c)
A person who is mentally ill because
of prolonged disease.
d)
One who is intoxicated.
2)
Legal insanity
Not every insanity is given excuse by law. Legal insanity is a type of insanity where the person loses the power of reasoning during the act.
To amend section
84 of IPC and to get the benefit of this defence, the following elements are to
be satisfied:
1.
The accused must be of unsound mind.
2.
He must be of unsound mind at the
time of the act and not before or after.
3. He must have been unable to know the nature and consequences of the act
which is either wrong or contrary to the law. The term ‘wrong’ differ from the term ‘contrary to the law.’
If anything is ‘wrong’, it is not compulsory that it would also be
‘contrary to the law.’ The legal commencement of insanity differs significantly
from medical commencement. Not every form of insanity is recognized as an
appropriate excuse by law.
Principles regarding the application of section 84 in
court, that must be followed in cases of insanity:
1) Initially the court must presume the absence of
insanity so that the burden of proof lies on the defence.
2)
The court must also take note whether
the accused suffered from insanity at the time of committing the action because
section 84 only provides protection to people who suffer from insanity only at
the time of the act.
3)
Throughout
the investigation, the investigating officer has to take the accused to medical
examination so that his current mental position could be known.
4)
To acknowledge the
contradiction between medical insanity and legal insanity. The cognitive
ability of the accused must be so destroyed as to making him incapable of
knowing the nature of his act, or what he was doing was contrary to the
law.
LOOPHOLES IN DEFENCE OF INSANITY
People often do grave misuse of section 84 as it is extremely difficult
for the court to actually know whether the accuse was truly of unsound mind while committing the crime. The
court has to highly rely on the evidence and testimony of witnesses. As a
result, in the current scenario, insanity has become a weapon to get away with
the crime. Courts need to critically analyse every part of the case to give
proper justice to the case.
It is always advised that there
should be a concrete definition of the term ‘mental insanity’ to avoid the
various controversies and misunderstandings that arise in understanding and
distinguishing between the ‘mental disease’ and the actual insanity of mind or
the ‘legal insanity’ in order to make the defence accessible to the accused as
this term have a different meaning in different context.
Furthermore, it is seen that the defence of insanity is very costly as the
cost of the trial is increased because the defence has to employ medical
specialists to examine the defendant, to determine the degree of existing
mental illness. Even if a defendant stays in a psychiatric
facility, being away from a prison sentence is not always a good thing. Such a
stay is probably more ascribable to the defendant and a chance always exists to
be cured and then sentenced as a healthy and ordinary person. That’s a perfect
way to get away with murders. There is no rock-solid procedure for such cases, thus leaving grey
areas. Every case is different, so we can’t just stick to one procedure.
CONCLUSION
In my opinion, there
should be a concrete definition for the terms like "insanity" or
"mental illness" because it will help to highlight the difference of
opinion that court and medical experts have over the same situation. The
meaning of these words differs from situation to situation. Ultimately it would
reduce the misuse of defence of insanity and prevent the loopholes of section
84 of the Indian Penal Code. Presently the courts are taking these things more
seriously. As such cases are rising at an alarming rate and you never know
what case is genuine.
Some rich people
are using their money and power to prove their insanity by hiring experts and
the defence of insanity has become their sword. They can hire well-known
psychiatric whereas on the other hand the people who cannot hire such
psychiatric, do not get the same quality of justice. We are living in a world
of two-tiered criminal justice. At this point, we can only hold faith in our
justice system, so that they can make the fair judgement for such cases.
