IMPORTANT POINT
Legal insanity – burden of proof and standard of proof.

JUDGMENT

T.S. Thakur, J. —

1. This appeal by special leave arises out of a judgment and order passed by the High Court of Madras whereby Criminal Appeal No.1215 of 2003 has been dismissed and the conviction of the appellant and sentence awarded to him for offences punishable under Sections 302, 307 and 342 of the I.P.C. upheld.

2. Briefly stated the prosecution case is that the appellant was residing in a house situate at Yadwal Street, Poovam Koticherri, Distt. Karaikal, Tamil Nadu. Apart from his wife Smt. Dhanalakshmi, PW2 and his daughter Abirami, aged about 1= years, his mother Smt. Valli, PW3 also lived with him. On the fateful night intervening 11-12 of December, 2000 at about 1 p.m. the appellant is alleged to have started a quarrel with his wife accusing her of having brought misfortune to him ever since she got married to him. The immediate provocation for making that accusation was his inability to sell the property owned by his mother, as the Revenue entries relating the same stood in the name of Kannan, the paternal uncle of the appellant, who it appears was not agreeable to the sale of the property. The quarrel between the husband and the wife took an ugly turn when the appellant made a murderous assault on his wife, Dhanalakshmi causing several injuries to her including those on her head, left hand, right cheek and other parts of the body. Intervention of PW3, Vali who is none other than the mother of the appellant also did not stop the appellant from assaulting his wife. In the process injuries were caused even to the mother. Due to the ruckus caused by the quarrel and the assault on the two women, Abirami who was sleeping in the adjacent room woke up and started crying. The appellant at that stage is alleged to have gone inside the room and hit the deceased resulting in her death.

3. The prosecution case further is that the appellant did not allow the injured to go out of the house and bolted the doors from inside. In the morning at about 7 a.m. Shri R. Parvathi, PW5 is said to have gone to the house of R. Natarajan, PW1 - a resident of the same street in the village and told him about the quarrel at the house of the appellant the previous night. Both of them then came to the spot and found a pool of blood near the outer door of the house of the appellant. Since the door was bolted from inside, PW1 called the appellant by his name, who responded to the call and said that he had cut his mother and wife and wanted to commit suicide for which he demanded some poison from them. A large number of villagers in the meantime gathered on the spot but the appellant refused to open the door. The Police was informed about the incident on telephone and soon arrived at the spot to knock at the doors of the appellant’s house asking him to open the same. The appellant refused to do so and threatened that he would murder anyone who ventured to enter the house. Since the appellant remained adamant in this resolve, the Police with the help of PWs 1, 8 and others forced the door open and found the appellant inside the house armed with an Aruval, and his mother and wife lying inside the house with serious cut injuries and blood all over the place. In the adjacent room they found Abirami in an injured condition. Not knowing whether she was dead or alive, she was picked up and rushed to the hospital alongwith the other two injured, where the doctor pronounced the child brought dead. On completion of the investigation, the police filed a charge-sheet against the appellant for offences punishable under Sections 342, 307 (2 counts) and 302 IPC. He was committed to the sessions at Karaikal where the appellant pleaded not guilty and claimed a trial.

4. Before the Trial Court the prosecution examined as many as 21 witnesses in support of its case while the accused-appellant who set up unsoundness of mind in defence did not lead any evidence except making a request for medical examination which request was allowed and Dr. R. Chandrasekar