CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
One of the primary basis of punishment under the criminal legal system of any country is the argument of responsibility. Perhaps since, ages what has been held as a common belief is that responsibility should be the guidepost of criminal law.
In today’s polity, a government that imposes harsh penalties without considering blameworthiness is morally repugnant to jurists and many of the commons alike. On one hand when there is a strong human urge to see those who have done wrong to be condemned, at the same time, it is considered fundamentally unfair to condemn a person who is not ‘culpable’. However, more importantly, when we accept the arguments of blameworthiness and culpability being the touchstone of criminal law, …show more content…
not of sound mind. The actions of a person, who is not in control of his mind, are not guided by the rational thinking of his brain. He lacks the basic essence of rationality in human beings, such that fundamental maxim of criminal law, i.e, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea meaning an act does not constitute guilt unless done with a guilty intention, comes to his help. Mens Rea is an essential element in every crime. There may be no crime of any nature without an evil mind. There must be a mind at fault to constitute a criminal act. The concurrence of act and guilty mind constitutes a crime . This theory has its basis in the latin maxim ‘actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea’ which means that the act does not make one guilty unless he has a guilty intention.
Lord Diplock in the case of Swet v. Parsley said, ‘An act does not make a person guilty of a crime unless his mind be so guilty’. But in the case of insane person, he may not understand the nature of the act. He does not have the sufficient mens rea to commit a crime. Since a criminal intent is an indispensible element in every crime, a person incapable of entertaining such intent may not incur guilt . An insane person is not punished because he does not have any guilty mind to commit the crime. The English law on insanity is based on the McNaughton rules and the Indian Law that is codified in the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC), s. 84, based on the McNaughton …show more content…
84 of the I.P.C., can only be established from the circumstances which proceeded, attended and followed the crime. Burden of proof of an exception is on the accused. Even if the accused was not able to establish conclusively that he was insane at the time he committed the offence, the evidence placed before the Court by the accused or by the prosecution may raise a reasonable doubt in the mind of the Court as regards one or more of the ingredients of the offence, including mens rea of the accused and in that case the Court would be entitled to acquit the accused on the ground that the general burden of proof resting on the prosecution was not discharged.
Insanity is a legal and not a medical term. Insanity is, therefore, defined by law and not by medicine. So, this section lays down a legal test of responsibility in cases of alleged unsoundness of mind. It is by this test, as distinguished from the medical test that the criminality of an act is to be determined. This provision of our law is in substance the same as that laid down in the answers of the Judges to the questions put for them by the House of Lords in McNaughton’s
INTRODUCTION
One of the primary basis of punishment under the criminal legal system of any country is the argument of responsibility. Perhaps since, ages what has been held as a common belief is that responsibility should be the guidepost of criminal law.
In today’s polity, a government that imposes harsh penalties without considering blameworthiness is morally repugnant to jurists and many of the commons alike. On one hand when there is a strong human urge to see those who have done wrong to be condemned, at the same time, it is considered fundamentally unfair to condemn a person who is not ‘culpable’. However, more importantly, when we accept the arguments of blameworthiness and culpability being the touchstone of criminal law, …show more content…
not of sound mind. The actions of a person, who is not in control of his mind, are not guided by the rational thinking of his brain. He lacks the basic essence of rationality in human beings, such that fundamental maxim of criminal law, i.e, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea meaning an act does not constitute guilt unless done with a guilty intention, comes to his help. Mens Rea is an essential element in every crime. There may be no crime of any nature without an evil mind. There must be a mind at fault to constitute a criminal act. The concurrence of act and guilty mind constitutes a crime . This theory has its basis in the latin maxim ‘actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea’ which means that the act does not make one guilty unless he has a guilty intention.
Lord Diplock in the case of Swet v. Parsley said, ‘An act does not make a person guilty of a crime unless his mind be so guilty’. But in the case of insane person, he may not understand the nature of the act. He does not have the sufficient mens rea to commit a crime. Since a criminal intent is an indispensible element in every crime, a person incapable of entertaining such intent may not incur guilt . An insane person is not punished because he does not have any guilty mind to commit the crime. The English law on insanity is based on the McNaughton rules and the Indian Law that is codified in the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC), s. 84, based on the McNaughton …show more content…
84 of the I.P.C., can only be established from the circumstances which proceeded, attended and followed the crime. Burden of proof of an exception is on the accused. Even if the accused was not able to establish conclusively that he was insane at the time he committed the offence, the evidence placed before the Court by the accused or by the prosecution may raise a reasonable doubt in the mind of the Court as regards one or more of the ingredients of the offence, including mens rea of the accused and in that case the Court would be entitled to acquit the accused on the ground that the general burden of proof resting on the prosecution was not discharged.
Insanity is a legal and not a medical term. Insanity is, therefore, defined by law and not by medicine. So, this section lays down a legal test of responsibility in cases of alleged unsoundness of mind. It is by this test, as distinguished from the medical test that the criminality of an act is to be determined. This provision of our law is in substance the same as that laid down in the answers of the Judges to the questions put for them by the House of Lords in McNaughton’s