The determination of unsoundness of mind and incapability to manage affairs under Section 65(2), Lunacy Act heavily relies on the evidence of medical experts.

Pollock, A J C—This is an appeal against the order of the District Judge of West Berar, in which he has recorded a finding under Section 65(2), Lunacy Act, 1912, that Mahipati is of so Unsound mind as to be incapable of managing his affairs, but that he is capable of managing himself and is not dangerous to himself or to others. Under Section 38(1) the Court may upon application by order direct an inquisition whether a parson subject to the jurisdiction of the Court who is alleged to be a lunatic, is of unsound mind and incapable of managing himself and his affairs. As has been pointed out in Muhammad Yaqub v. Nazir Ahmad, 1920 AIR(All) 80 and Saroj Basini Debi v. Mahendra Nath Bhaduri, 1927 AIR(Cal) 636, an order directing an inquisition into a man's state of mind is a very serious thing and such an order is intended by the statutes to bo a judicial determination carefully made upon adequate materials. If the Judge considers that the case calls for an order directing an inquisition, then it is his obvious duty to record an order directing an inquisition and he may then proceed under Sections 40, 41 and 42, Lunacy Act. In the present case he does not appear to have considered whether the present case calls for an order directing an inquisition or not, and it is therefore at least doubtful whether the subsequent proceedings had any validity. As was remarked by Rankin, C.J., in the Calcutta case above cited, Now an order having been duly made directing an inquisition, the date having arrived and proper notices having been given, the inquisition itself proceeds The whole thing is bottomed upon the previous order directing an inquisition and if there is no such order, then, in my judgment, the officer purporting to hold the inquisition is not holding an inquisition at all. He is merely a worthy gentleman wasting his own time and other people's. The proceedings in such a case, so far as I can see, have no validity or effect.

2. I now turn to the case on the merits. ''Lunatic'' is defined in Section 3, Lunacy Act, as an idiot or person of unsound mind. The learned District Judge interprets the word ''idiot'' as deficient in intellect and is of opinion that a person may be an idiot though not of unsound mind. The word ''idiot'' may be used popularly in that sense, but that is not its legal or medical significance. Ewens in his Work on Insanity in India at p. 29 states:

When from childhood the mind fails to develop, the bodily organs developing, but the mind not, the condition is termed idiocy: in such a case there may be practically no mind at all; the child sees but does not perceive; hears, but does not understand; is often unable to speak; cannot care for himself, dress or feed himself, and is incapable of being taught to do so. A lesser degree of this in which the child can be made to understand and can be taught to a certain degree is termed imbecility; while a still higher degree in which the infant grows to an adult, but his mental development remains that of a child with a knowledge out of all comparison inferior to that of his capacity for ordinary affairs, is usually spoken of as weak-mindedness; and there is really every grade between these three--all are a result in failure of cerebral evolution.

3. The definition of lunatic'' in the Lunacy Act, 1912 is taken from the Lunacy Act, 1890 (53 Vict. c. 5), which has been supplemented by the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 (3 & 4 Geo. 5, c. 28) which provides for the care of fee le minded and other mentally defective persons. Defectives are defined in Section 1 of the latter Act as:

(a) Idiots, that is to say, persons in whose case there exists mental defectiveness of such a degree that they are unable to guard themselves against common physical dangers; (b) imbeciles, that is to say, persons in whose case there exists mental defectiveness which, though not amounting to idiocy, is yet so pronounced that they are incapable of managing themselves or their affairs or, in the cas