Gill Ag LP (delivering the judgement of the Court):

The appellant was tried before Abdul Hamid J and a jury for the murder of one Perumal s/o Resavan in contravention of s. 302 of the Penal Code. The jury by a majority of five to two returned a verdict of guilty, with which the judge concurred, whereupon the appellant was convicted and sentenced to death. Against this conviction and sentence he appealed to this court. At the close of the hearing we dismissed the appeal, and now proceed to give our reasons.

At the trial there was very little controversy as to the facts, as the evidence produced by the prosecution in support of the charge was not seriously challenged. On that evidence it was abundantly clear that the deceased died as a result of the numerous stab wounds which were inflicted upon him by the appellant.

The defence relied upon was one of insanity. The appellant made a statement from the dock in which he said that he had nothing to say as he did not know what to say. His mother gave evidence to say that when on the night in question her son returned to the house she saw some blood stains on his shirt, and that when she asked him, "What is this?" he replied, "Nothing Mother". She went on to testify that when he came into the house he was muttering something to himself, after which he started crying and behaved a bit abnormally. The main evidence on the question of insanity was that of Dr. Dato' M. Mahadevan, the consultant psychiatrist, Hospital Babagia, Tanjong Rambutan.

The appeal before us was argued on eight separate grounds which overlapped one another and were to the effect that the learned trial judge did not direct the jury adequately on the question of insanity. It was contended that the learned trial judge failed to direct the jury as to the nature of the burden which lay on the defence in the case of insanity.The way in which the jury were directed on the question of insanity was as follows. Having read to them s. 84 of the Penal Code which provides that "nothing is an offence which is done by a person who, at the time of doing it, by reason of unsoundness of mind, is incapable of knowing the nature of the act, or that he is doing what is either wrong or contrary to law," the learned judge said that in order that the accused may have the benefit of this exception, he had to prove and they had to satisfy themselves that the accused was suffering from unsoundness of mind at the time when he did the act.

As was stated by this court in Goh Yoke v. PP [1970] 1 MLJ 63 following what was laid down by the Privy Council in Sodeman v. R [1936] 2 All ER 1138 and what the Singapore Court of Criminal Appeal said in Chia Chan Bah v. The King [1938] MLJ 147 the burden on an accused person to prove insanity is no higher than the burden which rests upon a plaintiff or a defendant in civil proceedings. In directing the jury on the quantum of proof on the defence, the learned judge did not state this formula but he ended up his direction to the jury on this point by saying this:

If the evidence relating to the conduct of the accused which led to this case or if defence evidence raises in your minds a doubt as to whether he was capable of knowing that what he did was wrong or unlawful you must give him the benefit of the doubt and in that case, he would be entitled to be acquitted on the ground that he was of unsound mind as required by s. 84."

It is to be observed that the learned judge in fact placed on the defence a much lighter burden of proof than is contained in the formula to which we have made reference.

In Goh Yoke's case [1970] 1 MLJ 63 it was held that for the normal presumption of sanity to prevail over evidence of insanity adduced by the defence, the evidence as a whole must be sufficient to exclude any reasonable doubt regarding the sanity of an accused person pleading unsoundness of the mind as a defence. In our judgment, what the learned judge finally said to the jury on the question of insanit