The main legal point established in the judgment is that the absence of motive when there are indications of insanity does not raise a legal presumption of insanity.

1. This is an appeal filed by the State challenging an order of acquittal passed in a murder case by the Court of Session, Kozhikode Division. Sulekha, a young girl of 15, who has been described by the trial court as "the soft skinned bewitching daughter of an iron monger" was stabbed to death by Ravi alias Raveendran, 26, in broad day-light on April 23, 1976 at about 3-45 p. m. from the eastern side of a public road called Panniankara road in Calicut city.

2. At the trial Ravi, the accused who is the respondent herein, pleaded guilty to the charge framed against him under S.302 IPC. But stating in Para.2 of the judgment that "the accused pleaded guilty to a charge under S.302 IPC. seemingly preferring a sentence to the contested agony of a criminal trial" and in Para.15, that this plea was entered by him two months after the offence had been committed and during the entire period of two months, without any break, the accused was either in police custody or in the custody of the court and that he seemed to be unconcerned with the punishment which may follow on conviction if his plea was accepted, the trial court proceeded with the trial of the accused.

3. On the conclusion of the trial, the court held that the accused had stabbed and killed Sulekha on the date, at the time and the place specified in the charge; but, finding that it was in a fit of impulsive insanity that he killed her and therefore he was entitled to the protection under S.84 IPC., acquitted him.

4. It is the finding of the trial court that the accused is entitled to the benefits of S.84 IPC. that is challenged in this appeal.

5. The learned Public prosecutor strongly assailed the finding of the trial court in this regard and the consequent order of acquittal on various grounds. He submitted that the trial court grievously erred in failing to take note of the distinction between medical insanity and legal insanity, that what is recognised under S 84 IPC. is only legal insanity, that the trial judge has neither discussed nor properly considered the material evidence in the case, that his finding on insanity is not based on any legal and admissible evidence on record, that he had referred to and relied on extraneous matters, that a reading of the judgment will show that from the very inception the trial judge has started with the assumption that the accused was insane and that the various passages extracted in the judgment from the text books of psychiatry and Medical Jurisprudence have no application to the present case. It was also submitted that the evidence of dw. I is highly interested, unsatisfactory and unreliable, that the accused was perfectly of sound mind at the time of the commission of the offence, that it is clear from the evidence that the attack was brutal and vindictive and that the remarks made against the Public Prosecutor and the police by the trial court are quite unwarranted and not supported by any material.

6. Supporting the order of acquittal, the learned advocate appearing for the respondent contended that there is no evidence that the accused had a motive to commit this crime, that he was madly in love with Sulekha as disclosed from his letters written to Sulekha produced before the trial court, that the murder was not committed in secrecy but in broad day light, that he did nut make any attempt to escape, but on the other hand, he lay on the dead body till the police came, that he was impulsive and sensitive by nature and also a person of irritable temperament and that these circumstances are sufficient to hold that the accused was insane at the time of the commission of the offence.

7. It is necessary to state the material and relevant facts of the prosecution case in some detail as disclosed from the evidence, especially when the trial judge has not adverted to some of the material facts and discussed the evidence in detail.

8. Sulekha, a Ninth Standard student, was the daughter of Rukkiya (Pw. 7) and the sister of Basheer (Pw.