Abstract

In Indian criminal law, the defense of insanity, is based on the principle that a person who is suffering from a mental illness or unsoundness of mind at the time of committing the offense lacks the capacity to understand the nature and consequences of their actions or to differentiate between right and wrong. To establish the defense of insanity, the burden of proof lies on the accused, who must demonstrate through medical evidence that they were suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the offense. If the court is satisfied that the accused was insane at the time of the offense, they may be acquitted or subjected to psychiatric treatment instead of imprisonment. The paper aims to analyze the familiarity of insanity as a defense and its tests and also examines the public's opinion on where the focus should be on when insanity is established in a serious crime case.The research method followed is descriptive research. The data is collected through a questionnaire and the sample size is 207. Convenience sampling method is adopted in the study to collect the data. The samples were collected from the general public with special reference to Tamilnadu region. The researcher used graphs, chi square and anova to analyze the data collected. The researcher found that 42.03% of the respondents are somewhat familiar with the concept of insanity as a defense under Indian criminal law , 63.29% of the respondents chose a combination of punishment and rehabilitation for the offenders who have insanity as a defense . It was also found that there is a significant difference of opinion regarding the importance of a psychiatrist in the process of giving credibility to the insanity of a person and the age of respondents.Drawing upon people’s opinion and legislative provisions, the paper explores the criteria for establishing insanity, the convincing tests and the role of courts and psychiatrists in determining mental incapacity.

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