(1) WHILE refusing special leave we wish emphatically to repudiate the contention persuasively presented by Shri Rana, learned counsel helping the court as amicus curiae that the very monstrosity of the crime the ceremo- nial beheading by the father and his relatives of a four-year old boy at the crescendo of morning bhajan provided the proof of insanity sufficient to exculpate the offender under S. 84, IPC.

(2) JUST one more observation relevant to the punishment. The poignantly pathological grip of macabre superstitions on some crude Indian minds in the shape of desire to do human and animal sacrifice, in defiance of the scientific ethos of our cultural heritage and the scientific impact of our technological century, shows up in crimes of primitive horror such as the one we are dealing with now, where a blood-curdling butchery of ones own beloved son was perpetrated, aided by other pious criminals, to propitiate some bloodthirsty deity. Secular India, speaking through the court, must administer shock therapy to such anti-social piety, when the manifestation is in terms of inhuman and criminal violence. When the disease is social, deterrence through court sentence m