S.84 IPC: Accused Must Prove “Legal Insanity”, Not Medical Insanity
Case: Tufan @ Tofan Versus State Of Madhya Pradesh
Coram: Justice G.S. Ahluwalia and Justice R.K. Shrivastava
Case No.: CRIMINAL APPEAL No.704 of 2017
Court Observation: Even insanity is not exempted under Section 84 of IPC. Every person who is mentally ill is not ipso facto exempted from criminal responsibility. There is a distinction between legal insanity and medical insanity. In order to take benefit of Section 84 of IPC, the accused must prove legal insanity, and not medical insanity. Any person, who is suffering from any kind of mental weakness is called “medical insanity,” however “legal insanity” means, person suffering from mental illness should also have a loss of reasoning power. Furthermore, the legal insanity must be at the time of incident. In other words, it can be said that in order to attract legal insanity, a person should be incapable of knowing the nature of the act, or he is doing what is either wrong or either contrary to law. Thus, mere abnormality of mind or compulsive behavior is not sufficient to take benefit of Section 84 of IPC.
The incident took place on 26-3-2010 at 1:00 P.M. The Appellant was arrested on 27-3-2012 at 17:30 i.e., on the next day. No mental unsoundness was noticed by Gahlaut Semliya (P.W. 9),who had arrested the Appellant. Furthermore, the Appellant was arrested on the next day, therefore, it is clear that after committing the offence, he absconded. Thus, it is clear that he was able to understand the gravity of his act. Therefore, it cannot be said that the Appellant was of unsound mind at the time of incident. Thus, the Appellant is not entitled for the benefit of Section 84 of IPC.
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Keywords
S.84 IPC, Legal Insanity, Medical Insanity
