Insanity and Legal Provisions

A set narrative is that in almost all criminal legislation, “mens rea” is necessary to hold criminal liability for the offence but there are some circumstances where it is not, and courts examine those cases under the impression of strict criminal liability. The present paper talks about the total immunity from criminal liability to the accused as provided in section 84 of IPC. If the accused satisfy the essential requirements of said section, then he will be able to take the benefit of the immunity provided by this provision. The very objective of these provisions is that a mad man is already facing the punishment of his own unsoundness of mind. There are some precedential situations in which the accused person can take the benefit from the general exception of section 84 of IPC. Many precedential catenae of cases are there in which the accused may be classified as suffering from medical insanity or legal insanity. But the court is merely concerned with the legal insanity and not medical. It is not necessary that in all these cases accused will be entitled to derive the protection under section 84 of IPC. The core effort in this research paper is related to elucidating the situations in which an accused can take protection under section 84 of IPC. Further, merely unsoundness of mind also does not make the accused entitled to take the protection rather impugned insanity must be at the very moment of the occurrence of the offence.