STATE OF KARNATAKA Vs. JATTI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal by the State arises out of and is directed against the judgment of the learned Sessions Judge, Karwar in S.C. No.19/1989. The learned Sessions Judge, by an order made in that case on the 7th day of November, 1989, acquitted the accused of the offence levelled against him, acting under S.334 of the Code of Criminal Procedure ('Cr. P.C. for short'), extending to him the benefit of the exception contained in S. 84 of the Indian Penal Code ('IPC' for short), but directed the accused to be detained in safe custody until the wife of the accused examined in the case as P.W. 1 arrived before Court to take charge of the accused as ordered therein. We are told that the wife did appear before Court and took charge of her husband on 13-11-89 after executing a bond assuring the safe conduct of the accused. The State considers the acquittal of the accused to be somewhat unmerited and not merely that, it takes exception to the procedure adopted by the learned Judge in endeavouring to brand the accused as an insane person just to work out an acquittal in his favour. The grievance made is that albeit the accused himself not having pleaded the defence of insanity and evidence led by the prosecution indicating that the accused was quite sane at the time he committed the crime alleged against him, the learned Judge had acted in a somewhat precarious manner in adjudging the accused insane merely by the observations he had made of the accused during the trial. It is said on such very thin, tenuous and insufficient material, the learned Judge, who did not have the benefit of medical evidence to infer that the accused was mentally insane at the time of committing the crime and which the accused himself partly owned during the course of his examination under S. 313, Cr. P.C. and what is more, even to the charge as framed by the Court below, the accused having entered a full-throated plea of not guilty in relation to the attack on his wife and children, which was a part of the charges framed against him that included the further charge of arson punishable under S. 436, I.P.C., indictment being that he had later set fire to the house of P.W. 2 Chandu as also the further case of assaulting P.Ws. 3 and 4 Kaniya and Shivu respectively, and it is contended that such a man could not have been branded as insane. The accused made no bias about admitting that he had indeed assaulted his wife and children but denied having either set fire to the house of P.W. 20 or assaulting P.Ws. 3 and 4. At the trial, on the strength of the prosecution evidence, the learned Judge did conclude that in most of its facets, the case of the prosecution is true but however went on to hold that the man either when he was belabouring his wife and children or his neighbours or when he set fire to the house of his neighbour P.W. 2, was totally unaware of what he was doing or the consequence of what he had done. In other words, he finds the man was at the time of commission of these acts, absolutely deprived of the power of reason, the ability to perceive the right or wrong of his action, with the result he declared him to be mentally insane and gave him the benefit of the exception enjoined by S. 84, I.P.C., which declares that nothing is an offence when it is found to be committed by a person who is mentally insane. In that view of the matter learned Judge acquitted the accused of the offence with which he stood charged, but did not however direct the accused be held in any asylum or direct that the accused be treated for his mental affliction, but simply rested content by ordering the accused be let into the custody of his wife and that of course appears to have since been done and that is where probably the accused remains.

(2.) After having heard the learned Additional State Public Prosecutor Sri. Bannurmath who appears in support of this appeal and Mr. M. V. Seshachala, the very amiable amicus curiae, who accepted the brief on behalf of the respondent (to be referred to hereinafter as 'the accused'), since as it was in the Court below, in this Court also be made no arrangements for his defence and therefore it is, we had to request Sri M. V. Seshachala to appear on behalf of the accused acting as amicus curiae to assist us in the matter. We had the benefit of the learned submissions made by him and after a consideration of the same, we think that this appeal ought to succeed and the judgment of the learned Sessions Judge acquitting the accused of the charges levelled against him taking the view that he was mentally insane, was clearly unsupportable.

(3.) Before we venture to give our reasons therefor, it behoves we also state a few facts that have led us to this appeal.