SATYA DEVI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal is an appeal by Shrimati Satya Devi, aged 40 years, wife of ram partap and a resident of village Gurditpura in Police Station Sadar Nabha, against the judgment dated the 22nd of July, 1966, of Shri P. N. Thukral, Sessions Judge, patiala convicting her of an offence under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentencing her to imprisonment for life and a fine of Rs. 500.

(2.) WE need not set out the prosecution case as we find that the trial held by the learned Sessions Judge is completely vitiated because the allegation as to the unsoundness of mind of the appellant was not investigated in accordance with the provisions of Section 465 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which runs as follows:

(3.) WE are fully satisfied from the manner in which the learned Sessions Judge dealt with the question of the appellant's sanity, that he was not absolutely certain of her mental state being such as not to attract the provisions of section 465. In any case, it does appear that the existence of the circumstances related by Shri tewari and the statement made by Dr. Sehgal provided enough material coupled with some of the conclusions arrived at by the learned Sessions Judge from the examination of the appellant and mentioned in the order dated the 21st of July, 1966, which should have created a very reasonable suspicion in the mind of the learned Sessions Judge about the sanity of the appellant and the least that he should have done was to obtain medical opinion about the mental condition of the appellant before holding that he was satisfied about her sanity. The provisions of section 465 do not embrace an idle formality but are calculated to ensure to an accused person a fair trial which cannot obviously be afforded to an insane person and non-observance of those provisions must be held to convert a trial into a farce. Courts must, therefore, guard against dealing with the matter of suspected sanity of an accused person in a perfunctory manner as such a course is bound to result in the trial Judge, more often than not, coming to an incorrect conclusion about the sanity of the accused before him. In the present case the appellant was charged with a capital offence but she refused to give any instructions to Shri tewari who also found that her replies to questions put to her by him were incoherent, irrelevant and repetitive. Again, Dr. Sehgal was of the opinion that the appellant meant that the doctor regarded her being a dement. Dr. Sehgal stated in categorical terms that it was not possible for him to express any opinion regarding the mental condition of the appellant even though she had been examined generally by the Court in his presence. The learned Sessions Judge came to the conclusion that the appellant was a simpleton but "though she is helpless because neither her husband nor her children appeared to be interested in her or take any interest in her defence". It may be that the reason given by him itself weighed that the appellant was not insane but only a simpleton but then that reason fill the lacuna which the trial suffers from by reason of the learned Sessions Judge not following the procedure envisaged by the second stage mentioned in section 465.