SUPREME COURT: MENTALLY ILL INDIVIDUALS CANNOT BE CONVICTED AS THEY CANNOT EXERCISE RIGHT TO DEFENCE UNDER ARTICLE 21:

The Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of a man who was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, citing substantial reasonable doubt regarding his mental condition at the time of the offence. A bench comprising Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan held that an individual classified as a lunatic cannot be held criminally liable, as he is incapable of defending himself—an essential component of the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.

The appellant had been convicted under Sections 302 (murder), 352 (assault or use of criminal force), and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, in connection with an incident dated 27th September 2018. On that day, the deceased, Asam Gota, and a prosecution witness, Fagu Ram Karanga, were cutting grass in an agricultural field when the appellant appeared armed with an iron pipe. He struck the deceased on the head with the weapon. As the witness attempted to flee, the appellant pursued him. The Trial Court found the appellant guilty under Section 302 IPC and sentenced him to life imprisonment, a verdict which was later upheld by the High Court.

Before the High Court, the appellant argued that he had been of unsound mind at the time of the offence and pointed to sufficient evidence to support this claim. However, the High Court dismissed this argument based on a medical report dated 7th December 2023, which indicated that the appellant was mentally stable.

In the Supreme Court, the appellant’s counsel referred to the testimony of several prosecution witnesses who had stated that the appellant exhibited signs of mental instability around the time of the incident. The counsel cited landmark decisions such as Dahyabhai Chhaganbhai Thakkar v. State of Gujarat and Rupesh Manger (Thapa) v. State of Sikkim, arguing that under Section 84 IPC, the accused only needs to create a reasonable doubt about his sanity to claim the defence of insanity.

Conversely, the State argued that the initial burden of proving insanity rests on the accused, and that this burden is not met unless there is specific evidence regarding the conduct of the accused before, during, and after the crime. The State further maintained that, given the absence of medical evidence contemporaneous with the incident and the 2023 medical report confirming the appellant’s sanity, the High Court had rightly concluded that the defence had failed to discharge the burden.

The Supreme Court referred to the precedent set in Dahyabhai Chhaganbhai Thakkar, which held that while the prosecution bears the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the accused can rebut the presumption of sanity by presenting relevant evidence, and the required standard of proof is akin to that in civil cases. The Court reaffirmed that even when legal insanity is not conclusively established, any evidence that raises reasonable doubt about the presence of mens rea—the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing—would entitle the accused to acquittal.

This position has also been upheld in other judgments such as Rupesh Manager (Thapa) and Surendra Mishra v. State of Jharkhand, where it was clarified that the law requires proof of legal insanity and not just medical insanity. The Court emphasized that the conduct of the accused before, during, and after the offence must be scrutinized to determine whether he was aware of the nature and wrongfulness of his actions. In Bapu Alias Gujraj Singh v. State of Rajasthan, the Supreme Court held that if an accused is incapable of understanding the nature of the act or whether it was wrong or contrary to law, he is entitled to the protection of Section 84 IPC. The judgment also stressed that in cases where there is a known history of mental illness, it is the responsibility of the investigative authorities to ensure the accused is medically examined and that such evidence is presented to the court.

In the present case, the Supreme Court examined the depositions of several prosecution witnesses. PW1, though not an eyewitness, stated in cross-examination that the appellant experienced episodes of madness and was known in the village for his mental instability. PW2, an eyewitness to the incident, also confirmed that the appellant was mentally unwell and frequently engaged in abusive and aggressive behavior with villagers. Other prosecution witnesses gave similar accounts regarding the appellant’s unstable mental condition, particularly in their cross-examinations.

The Court noted that these testimonies, which concerned the appellant’s condition both before and after the incident, were not challenged by the prosecution through re-examination. The Court found it striking that, despite such evidence being presented during trial, the prosecution did not request the Trial Court to conduct a medical examination of the appellant. The Supreme Court found the December 2023 medical examination, conducted over five years after the incident, irrelevant to assessing the appellant’s mental state at the time of the offence.

After analyzing the evidence, the Court concluded that the statements of the prosecution witnesses clearly raised more than a reasonable doubt about the appellant’s sanity at the time of the incident. Given this, the benefit of the doubt had to be extended to the accused. The Supreme Court held that the lower court judgments could not stand and accordingly set them aside.