9911796707
TMI Blog2011 (12) TMI 729X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... t and acts unless contrary is proved. But a person of unsound mind or a person suffering from mental disorder cannot be said to possess this basic norm of human behavior. Once, a person is found to be suffering from mental disorder or mental deficiency, which takes within its ambit hallucinations, dementia, loss of memory and self-control , at all relevant times by way of appropriate documentary and oral evidence, the person concerned would be entitled to seek resort to the general exceptions from criminal liability. Epileptic Psychosis is a progressing disease and its effects have appropriately been described in the text book of Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology by Modi, 24th Ed. 2011 - Epileptic Psychosis Epilepsy usually occurs from early infancy, though it may occur at any period of life. Individuals, who have had epileptic fits for years, do not necessarily show any mental aberration, but quite a few of them suffer from mental deterioration. Religiousity is a marked feature in the commencement, but the feeling is only superficial. Such patients are peevish, impulsive and suspicious, and are easily provoked to anger on the slightest cause.'' According ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ) and was sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life by the Additional Sessions Judge-1, Jodhpur vide judgment dated 7th June, 2000. However, upon appeal, he came to be acquitted of all the offences by a Division Bench of the High Court of Rajasthan vide order dated 21st February, 2004 primarily on the ground that at the time of incident, he was a person of unsound mind within the meaning of Section 84 IPC and was directed to be detained in safe custody in an appropriate hospital or a place of custody of non-criminal lunatics as would be provided to him by the State Government under the direct supervision of the Jail Authorities till the time he was cured of his mental illness and infirmity. 2. Aggrieved from the said judgment, the State of Rajasthan has presented this appeal by way of a special leave petition. 3. Before we proceed to dwell upon the merits of the case and the legal issues involved in the present appeal, a reference to the case of the prosecution would be necessary. According to the prosecution, on 10th March, 1999 at about 7.15 a.m., while Pujari Tulsi Das (now deceased) was in the Raghunathji s temple, the respondent abruptly hurled a st ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... cts, it is an appeal against the judgment of acquittal. The plea of insanity raised by the respondent has been accepted by the High Court resulting in his acquittal. 9. A judgment of acquittal has the obvious consequence of granting freedom to the accused. This Court has taken a consistent view that unless the judgment in appeal is contrary to evidence, palpably erroneous or a view which could not have been taken by the court of competent jurisdiction keeping in view the settled canons of criminal jurisprudence, this Court shall be reluctant to interfere with such judgment of acquittal. 10. The penal laws in India are primarily based upon certain fundamental procedural values, which are right to fair trial and presumption of innocence. A person is presumed to be innocent till proven guilty and once held to be not guilty of a criminal charge, he enjoys the benefit of such presumption which could be interfered with only for valid and proper reasons. An appeal against acquittal has always been differentiated from a normal appeal against conviction. Wherever there is perversity of facts and/or law appearing in the judgment, the appellate court would be within ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... re met. This is the linchpin around which the administration of criminal justice revolves. 14. It is a settled principle of criminal jurisprudence that the burden of proof lies on the prosecution and it has to prove a charge beyond reasonable doubt. The presumption of innocence and the right to fair trial are twin safeguards available to the accused under our criminal justice system but once the prosecution has proved its case and the evidence led by the prosecution, in conjunction with the chain of events as are stated to have occurred, if, points irresistibly to the conclusion that the accused is guilty then the court can interfere even with the judgment of acquittal. The judgment of acquittal might be based upon misappreciation of evidence or apparent violation of settled canons of criminal jurisprudence. 15. We may now refer to some judgments of this Court on this issue. In State of M.P. v. Bacchudas, the Court was concerned with a case where the accused had been found guilty of an offence punishable under Section 304 Part II read with Section 34 IPC by the trial court; but had been acquitted by the High Court of Madhya Pradesh. The appeal was dismisse ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... State of Kerala v. C.P. Rao decided on 16-5-2011, discussed the scope of interference by this Court in an order of acquittal and while reiterating the view of a three-Judge Bench of this Court in Sanwat Singh v. State of Rajasthan, the Court held as under: 13. In coming to this conclusion, we are reminded of the well-settled principle that when the court has to exercise its discretion in an appeal arising against an order of acquittal, the court must remember that the innocence of the accused is further re-established by the judgment of acquittal rendered by the High Court. Against such decision of the High Court, the scope of interference by this Court in an order of acquittal has been very succinctly laid down by a three-Judge Bench of this Court in Sanwat Singh v. State of Rajasthan 212. At SCR p. 129, Subba Rao, J. (as His Lordship then was) culled out the principles as follows: 9. The foregoing discussion yields the following results: (1) an appellate court has full power to review the evidence upon which the order of acquittal is founded; (2) the principles laid down in Sheo Swarup case afford a correct guide for the appellate court s approach to a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... distinction has to be kept in mind by the Court while exercising its appellate jurisdiction. The golden rule is that the Court is obliged and it will not abjure its duty to prevent miscarriage of justice, where interference is imperative and the ends of justice so require and it is essential to appease the judicial conscience. 13. Also, this Court had the occasion to state the principles which may be taken into consideration by the appellate court while dealing with an appeal against acquittal. There is no absolute restriction in law to review and re-look the entire evidence on which the order of acquittal is founded. If, upon scrutiny, the appellate court finds that the lower court s decision is based on erroneous views and against the settled position of law then the said order of acquittal should be set aside. {See State (Delhi Administration) v. Laxman Kumar Ors. [(1985) 4 SCC 476], Raj Kishore Jha v. State of Bihar Ors. [AIR 2003 SC 4664], Inspector of Police, Tamil Nadu v. John David [JT 2011 (5) SC 1] } 14. To put it appropriately, we have to examine, with reference to the present case whether the impugned judgment of acquittal recorded by the H ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rm of human behavior. In the case of Surendra Mishra v. State of Jharkhand [(2011) 3 SCC(Cri.) 232], the Court was dealing with a case where the accused was charged for an offence under Section 302 IPC and Section 27 of the Arms Act. While denying the protection of Section 84 of the IPC to the accused, the Court held as under:- 9. In our opinion, an accused who seeks exoneration from liability of an act under Section 84 of the Indian Penal Code is to prove legal insanity and not medical insanity. Expression unsoundness of mind has not been defined in the Indian Penal Code and it has mainly been treated as equivalent to insanity. But the term insanity carries different meaning in different contexts and describes varying degrees of mental disorder. Every person who is suffering from mental disease is not ipso facto exempted from criminal liability. The mere fact that the accused is conceited, odd, irascible and his brain is not quite all right, or that the physical and mental ailments from which he suffered had rendered his intellect weak and affected his emotions or indulges in certain unusual acts, or had fits of insanity at short intervals or that he was subject to ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... is known as preepileptic, post-epileptic and masked or psychic phases (psychomotor epilepsy) Post-Epileptic Mental Ill-health In this condition, stupor following the epileptic fits is replaced by automatic acts of which the patient has no recollections. The patient is confused, fails to recognize his own relatives, and wanders aimlessly. He is terrified by visual and auditory hallucinations of a religious character and delusions of persecution, and consequently, may commit crimes of a horrible nature, such as thefts, incendiarism, sexual assaults and brutal murders. The patient never attempts to conceal them at the time of perpetration but on regaining consciousness may try to conceal them out of fear. 23. Similar features of Epilepsy have been recorded in the HWV COX Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology (7th Edn) by PC Dikshit. 24. Reverting to the facts of the present case, it may be noted that no witness of the prosecution including the Investigating Officer stated anything with regard to the mental condition of the respondent. However, the respondent not only in his statement under Section 313 Cr.P.C. took up the defence of mental diso ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rs. After committing the crime, he was arrested by the Police and even thereafter, he was treated for insanity, while in jail. 28. Thus, there is evidence to show continuous mental sickness of the respondent. He not only caused death of the deceased but also on the very same day injured and caused hurt to his family members including DW-1. His statement made under Section 313 Cr.PC is fully corroborated by oral and documentary evidence of DW-2 and Ext. D-3 and D-4. Though, the High Court has not discussed this evidence in great detail, but this being an admissible piece of evidence, can always be relied upon to substantiate the conclusion and findings recorded by the High Court. 29. In other words, the High Court on the basis of the documentary and oral evidence has a taken a view which was a possible and cannot be termed as perverse or being supported by no evidence. The finding of the High Court, being in consonance with the well settled principles of criminal jurisprudence, does not call for any interference. More so, the learned counsel appearing for the State has not brought to our notice any evidence, documentary or otherwise, which could persuade us ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ed to be proved by expert evidence. The counsel for the respondent relied upon a judgment of this Court in the case of Ram Jattan and Others v. State of U.P. [(1995) SCC (Cri) 169] where this Court held that it is not appropriate to interfere with the conclusion that the injuries are not sufficient to cause death unless they are so patent. The Court held as under:- 4. The learned counsel, however, further submitted that in any event the offence committed by the members of unlawful assembly cannot be held to be one of murder and therefore the common object of unlawful assembly was not one which attracts the provision of Section 302 read with Section 149 IPC. We find considerable force in this submission. Though, in general, right from the first report onwards the prosecution case is that all the 12 accused armed with sharp-edged weapons and lathis surrounded the three persons and inflicted the injuries but from the doctor's report we find that no injury was caused on the vital organs. So far as Patroo is concerned, who got the report written by PW 7 and gave it in the police station, we find 13 injuries but all of them were abrasions and lacerated injuries on the l ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... . Again as already noted all the injuries were on the non-vital parts of the body. The learned counsel for the State, however, submitted that a forceful blow dealt on the arm might have in turn caused the fracture of the two ribs. Even assuming for a moment it to be so, it is difficult to hold that from that circumstance alone the common object of the unlawful assembly of 12 persons to cause the death of the deceased is established. 5. The common object has to be gathered or inferred from the various circumstances like nature of the weapons, the force used and the injuries that are caused. After carefully going through the medical evidence we find that it is difficult to conclude that the common object was to cause the death. The injuries on Patroo, PW 8 as well as on the deceased were more or less of the same nature except that in the case of deceased, there were few punctured wounds which were not serious but only simple. He died due to shock and haemorrhage the next day. In any event there is no indication anywhere in the evidence of the doctor or in the post-mortem certificate that any of the injuries was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... lined to interfere with the finding recorded by the High Court. 35. In the present case also, there is no documentary or oral evidence to prove the fact that the injuries caused by the respondent to the deceased were sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. This, however, cannot be stated as an absolute proposition of law and the question whether the particular injury was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death or not is a question of fact which will have to be determined in light of the facts, circumstances and evidence produced in a given case. (Ref. Halsbury s Laws of India 5(2) Criminal Law-II). There could be cases where injuries caused upon the body of the deceased per se can irresistibly lead to the conclusion that the injuries were sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature, while there may be other cases where it is required to be proved by documentary and oral evidence. Resultantly, it will always depend on the facts of each case. Thus, in such cases, it may neither be permissible nor possible to state any absolute principle of law universally applicable to all such cases. 36. In ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
|
