WHETHER ACT OF AN INSANE PERSON GOES UNPUNISHED?

We all have seen how movies picturize a person committing an offence and then pretending to be innocent by making people believe that he is of unsound mind or insane. A question often arises in the viewers "whether it is true?" "Is a person of unsound mind exempt from conviction?" Let us go through what the law says.

Section 84 of Indian Penal Code states that : 

"Nothing is an offence which is done by a person, who at the time of doing it, by reason of unsoundness of mind, is incapable of knowing the nature of the act, or that he is doing what is either wrong or contrary to law."

But it's never easy to prove the application of the above section as they show in movies, well it's just movies!

The burden of proving the existence of circumstances, bringing the case within the purview of section 84  of Indian Penal Code (act of the person of unsound mind ) lies upon the accused under section 105 of the Indian Evidence Act.

Section 105 clearly points out that, the burden of proof of circumstances bringing his case within any of the general exceptions shall be on the accused and the court shall presume the evidence of such circumstances.

The  court has to consider the entire conduct of the accused from the time of the commission of the offence up to the time the session proceedings commence for the purpose of ascertaining as to whether the plea of general exceptions taken by him was genuine. Accused has to provide relevant evidence- oral, documentary or circumstantial but the burden of proof lies upon him is not higher than that rests upon a party to civil proceedings.

Conclusion:

If a person is genuinely insane/ unsound to that extent, that he is incapable of knowing the nature of the act or that what he was doing was either wrong or contrary to law. Regardless of the precise legal standard, the insanity defense is rarely raised and even more rarely successful. It is used in only about 1% of cases in the U.S., and is successful less than 25% of the time. After-all, "Simple can be harder than complex".