State of Madhya Pradesh vs Ahmadullah

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 120 of 1960

Decision Date: 25 January 1961

Coram: N. Rajagopala Ayyangar, A.K. Sarkar

In this matter the State of Madhya Pradesh instituted criminal proceedings against Ahmadullah. The judgment was rendered on 25 January 1961 by a bench of the Supreme Court of India consisting of Justice N. Rajagopala Ayyangar and Justice A. K. Sarkar. The report of the judgment appears in the 1961 volume of the All India Reporter at page 998 and in the 1961 Supreme Court Reports, third series, page 583. The case was authored by Justice N. Rajagopala Ayyangar.

The High Court of Madhya Pradesh, Gwalior Bench, had affirmed an order of acquittal issued by the Sessions Judge. The acquittal was based on the ground that the accused, Ahmadullah, was of unsound mind at the time he allegedly committed the offence of murder punishable under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. According to the prosecution, Ahmadullah murdered his mother‑in‑law, a woman toward whom he bore ill‑will, by severing her head while she slept during the dead of night. The prosecution also produced a confession made by Ahmadullah admitting the commission of the crime. Nevertheless, the defence pleaded that Ahmadullah suffered from insanity, and this plea was taken into consideration during the trial.

The Supreme Court held that the decisive moment for establishing unsoundness of mind is the exact instant when the criminal act is performed. The onus of proving such unsoundness at that moment rests upon the accused, and only a successful proof can entitle the accused to the exemption provided by section 84 of the Indian Penal Code. The Court stressed that it is insufficient merely to demonstrate that the accused suffered from an “epileptic type of insanity” either before or after the commission of the offence. The Court cited the principle articulated in Henry Perry, reported in the Fourteenth Criminal Appeal Reports at page 48, which follows the same rule.

Upon examining the record of the present case, the Court found no evidence indicating that Ahmadullah, at the precise time of the alleged homicide, was incapable of understanding that his conduct was wrongful or contrary to law. Consequently, the Court concluded that Ahmadullah could not rely on section 84 to obtain an acquittal. The Court further observed that the High Court’s refusal to set aside the acquittal, despite the lack of proof of unsoundness of mind at the relevant time, could not be justified on any ground of “impelling reasons” or similar equitable considerations.

The appeal before the Supreme Court was filed by special leave under Criminal Appeal No. 120 of 1960. The appeal arose from a judgment and order dated 28 February 1958 of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Gwalior Bench, which had dismissed the State’s attempt to reverse the Sessions Judge’s acquittal in Criminal Appeal No. 3 of 1957. Counsel for the State, identified only as the advocate for the appellant, presented the arguments before the Court. The respondent, Ahmadullah, did not appear before the Supreme Court. The judgment was delivered on 25 January 1961, with Justice Ayyangar providing the opinion of the Court.

The appellate ground presented by the State was that the Sessions Judge, a finding later affirmed by the High Court, held the accused to have been of unsound mind at the time the offence was committed, thereby entitling him to acquittal under section 84 of the Indian Penal Code. Both the Sessions Judge and the High Court judges concurred that the decisive moment for establishing unsoundness of mind, as defined in that provision, is the instant when the criminal act is performed. The State’s grievance arose from the application of this principle to the facts proved by the evidence, which it contended was erroneous. Section 84, which the accused successfully invoked before the lower courts, states: “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.” It was undisputed that the onus of proving the accused’s mental condition at the critical moment rested upon the accused, who claimed the protection of this exemption, as prescribed by section 105 of the Indian Evidence Act, Illustration (a). To appreciate the issue now before this Court, it is necessary to review the findings of the Sessions Judge that were endorsed by the High Court judges. Before undertaking that review, a brief narration of the uncontested facts is appropriate. The deceased, Bismilla, was the mother of the accused’s wife, Jinnat, from a marriage that had subsequently been dissolved. The accused harboured a grievance against his former mother‑in‑law for reasons that need not be detailed. On the night of 28 September 1954, Bismilla retired to her own residence and went to bed. The following morning her husband discovered her body lying in a pool of blood on the cot where she had been sleeping, her head missing. The son of the deceased promptly lodged a First Information Report. Police were informed of the accused’s ill‑will toward Bismilla, and the Sub‑Inspector in charge of the investigation summoned the accused. The accused admitted committing the murder and explained that he had placed Bismilla’s severed head and the knife used for the decapitation into a cloth‑bag, which he then concealed in an underground cell of his father’s furniture shop. He was escorted to that shop, where, in the presence of five witnesses, he retrieved the cloth‑bag and its contents. He also produced a torch taken from the shop’s cash‑box and handed it to the police, stating that he had used the torch on the night of the murder to locate the deceased in darkness. The accused further described how he had scaled the wall of the victim’s house, entered the room, found her asleep on the cot, severed her head from the trunk, and carried the head away to hide it at the aforementioned location. He was then produced before the District Magistrate, where he made a confessional statement recounting all these facts. Subsequently, he was committed to stand trial before the Sessions Court at Gwalior for the offence of murder under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. The confession, which was substantially corroborated by other evidence, was never withdrawn, even when the accused answered questions posed by the committing magistrate and by the trial court.

The accused retrieved a torch from the cash‑box of his father’s shop and handed it over to the investigating police, stating that he had used the torch on the night of the murder to locate the victim in the darkness. He then described in detail how he had scaled the wall of the deceased’s house, gained entry into the bedroom, found the woman asleep on a cot, severed her head from the body, carried the head away and concealed it at the same location from which he later retrieved it. The respondent was produced before the District Magistrate, where he made a full confessional statement recounting all of these facts. Following that confession, he was committed to stand trial before the Sessions Judge at Gwalior for the offence punishable under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. It is necessary to note that the confession was substantially corroborated by other evidence and was never withdrawn. Nevertheless, when the magistrate and later the Sessions Judge questioned him under section 342 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the respondent professed total ignorance of the matters he had earlier confessed to.

In support of the defence plea of unsoundness of mind, three witnesses were examined, two of whom were medical experts. The first medical witness, Mahavir Singh, who was the District Civil Surgeon and Superintendent of the Mental Hospital, testified that he had treated the accused as a private patient in August 1952. He stated that at that time the accused suffered from an epileptic type of insanity. Since this observation dated more than two years before the occurrence, the court noted that his evidence could not be decisive on the question of whether the accused was insane at the material time defined by section 84 of the Indian Penal Code. The second medical witness, the Superintendent of the Mental Hospital, examined the accused on and after 18 November 1954, nearly two months after the incident, and likewise affirmed that the accused suffered from epileptic insanity. He explained that the first stage of a fit involves spasticity, the second stage features convulsions of the hands and feet, the third stage leads to unconsciousness, and the final stage may produce actions resembling sleep‑walking. The court observed that this testimony described the nature of the disease afflicting the accused, but did not address his mental condition at the precise moment of committing the act. The third witness concerned the accused’s mental state was his father, who testified that “The accused was in a disturbed state of mind in the evening of September 28, 1954. He”.

The father of the accused testified that the accused had not taken any food for two days. He said that when he went to the shop on the morning of 29 September 1954 at about 7 hours 30 minutes or 7 hours 45 minutes, he found his son unconscious and that his hands and feet were stiffened. He added that at that moment the police arrived at the scene and took the accused into their custody. On the basis of this testimony the learned Sessions Judge first set out the legal principle applicable under section 84 of the Indian Penal Code. He observed that the decisive moment for establishing unsoundness of mind is the exact time when the act constituting the offence is performed, and that the onus of proving entitlement to the exemption provided by that section rests upon the accused. The Judge then summarized the evidentiary material presented in the trial, asking whether the accused was incapable of knowing the nature of the act. He noted that the fact that the accused had gone at night to the house of his mother‑in‑law, deliberately cut her head and carried the severed head to his own residence was a clear indication that the accused was capable of appreciating what he was doing. In other words, the Judge held that while killing Bismilla the accused was not under any delusion that he was merely breaking an earthen jar. The defence counsel did not challenge this aspect of the accusation; instead, the counsel argued that the accused was unable to understand that his conduct was either wrongful or contrary to law.

The learned Judge based his decision to acquit the accused on several factual findings. He observed that shortly after the commission of the crime the accused was admitted to a mental hospital, where the Superintendent confirmed that the accused suffered from epileptic fits. The Judge explained that epilepsy can, in certain circumstances, give rise to a form of insanity known as epileptic insanity, a condition in which a person may commit brutal murders without any awareness of his actions. Because the accused suffered from epilepsy and had committed a brutal murder, the Judge concluded that there was a reasonable basis to believe that the offence may have been committed during a fit of epileptic insanity, and that the accused therefore might not have known that his conduct was wrong or prohibited by law. Accordingly, the Judge found that the accused had indeed killed Bismilla by severing her head with a knife, but that, by reason of unsoundness of mind, he was incapable of knowing that his act was wrongful or illegal. On that ground, the Judge held that the accused could not be held guilty of murder under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and directed that the accused be acquitted. The judgment also noted that the learned Judge had previously found that the accused was aware of the nature of the act he performed, a finding that, as will be discussed later, was concurred in by the higher courts.

In this case, the Court noted that the observations made by the learned Judges of the High Court were difficult to uphold given the facts of the case. After the learned Sessions Judge had ordered an acquittal, the State filed an appeal before the High Court. The learned Judges of the High Court correctly understood that to rely on the exemption provided by section 84 of the Indian Penal Code, it must be established that the accused was insane at the moment of the act. On this aspect of the case, they observed that the material concerning the mental condition immediately before and after the crucial moment consisted of the circumstances of the respondent’s conduct on the morning of the 29th and the confession he gave that afternoon. By themselves those facts did not support the theory of mental unsoundness required for section 84, although they could be explained consistently with epileptic insanity. The murder itself had been committed with extraordinary cunning and attention to the most minute detail, which made it certain that the respondent knew the physical nature of what he was doing; he did not believe he was breaking a pot or cutting a cabbage, but was taking the life of a human being in order to vindicate his honour within sixteen hours. In fact, at the time of his confession the respondent was in a state of elation rather than depression or a blackout. The learned Sessions Judge had held that the respondent was in a fit of epileptic insanity on the night of the 28th when he killed his mother‑in‑law and, although not clearly recorded, appeared to find that this fit continued at least until the time of his confession. The Court acknowledged that this finding was not without evidentiary support, but it could only be properly arrived at if it were consistent with the observation made of the respondent immediately after 29 September 1954. The High Court pointed out that no medical expert had examined the accused soon after the act, so no inference could be drawn regarding his mental condition just prior to the killing. After detailing the arguments of both sides, the learned Judges concluded that there was no evidence pointing to the kind and degree of mental unsoundness required by section 84 of the Indian Penal Code. On the defective material before them, any conclusion either way would have been unsatisfactory. In a case where the proved facts otherwise support a conviction for murder, the burden rests on the defence to adduce evidence, and the defence must bear the consequences of any omissions in that regard.

The learned judges of the High Court disagreed with the conclusion reached by the learned Sessions Judge concerning the application of section 84 of the Indian Penal Code to the facts of the present case. They observed that the Sessions Judge had been satisfied that the defence had discharged the onus of proving that, at the time of the commission of the offence, the accused was so mentally unsound that he did not know that his act was wrong or contrary to law. The High Court further held that it was now for the State, on appeal, to establish that the finding of the Sessions Judge was perverse and that there existed compelling reasons for reversing that decision. On the basis of this reasoning the High Court dismissed the State’s appeal. The Court in the present proceeding is unable to agree with either the conclusion of the High Court or the reasoning upon which that conclusion was founded. It is observed that the High Court judges failed to recognise that the error in the Sessions Judge’s judgment lay not merely in the implicit acceptance of the testimony of the accused’s father – an obviously interested witness against whom the State could justifiably complain – but rather in proceeding on a basis where inferences and probabilities founded upon assumptions were permitted to stand in for the proved facts which the statute requires to be established before the exemption under section 84 may be claimed. A refusal to interfere with an acquittal under such circumstances cannot be justified under any rule of “impelling reasons” for interference, even assuming the existence of such a rule.

The error of the High Court, therefore, consisted in ignoring the fact that the record contained nothing upon which it could be said that, at the moment of the act, the accused was incapable of knowing that what he was doing was wrong or contrary to law. In this connection reference may be made to the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal in the case reported as En, gland in Henry Perry (14 Cr. Appeal Rep. 48). In that case the defence alleged that the accused was prone to epileptic fits. During argument Chief Justice Reading observed that “the crux of the whole question is whether this man was suffering from epilepsy at the time he committed the crime. Otherwise it would be a most dangerous doctrine if a man could say, ‘I once had an epileptic fit, and everything that happens hereafter must be put down to that’.” The learned Chief Justice went on to state that every person is presumed to be sane and to possess a sufficient degree of reason to be responsible for his acts unless the contrary is proved, and that to establish insanity it must be clearly proved that, at the time of committing the act, the party was labouring under such a defect of reason as not to know the nature and quality of the act which he is committing—that is, the physical nature and quality, distinguished from the moral aspect, or that, if he does know the nature and quality of the act he is committing, he does not know that he is doing wrong. The present case is very similar, and the observations extracted from that precedent apply with appositeness. There was no basis in the evidence before the Court for the finding by the Sessions Judge that, at the crucial moment when the accused strangled his mother‑in‑law and severed her head, he was, on account of mental unsoundness, incapable of knowing that his conduct was wrong.

The Court explained that for an accused to be declared insane, it must first be shown that the person was unable to understand the physical nature and quality of the act, or, if he did understand the act, that he did not know that what he was doing was wrong. Evidence of a medical character had been placed before the jury, and the prisoner himself had stated that he suffered from epileptic fits. The Court also examined prison records that showed he had experienced attacks of epilepsy. However, the Court noted that proving a history of epilepsy was only the first step; it was necessary to demonstrate that the accused was undergoing an epileptic seizure at the exact moment he committed the murders. The Court found that such proof had not been established. It further observed that the present case was very similar to the earlier case discussed, and that the observations drawn from that precedent applied aptly to the facts before it.

The Court held that there was no basis in the evidence for the Sessions Judge’s finding that, at the crucial moment when the accused cut the throat of his mother‑in‑law and severed her head, he was of unsound mind and incapable of knowing that his act was wrong. Even the testimony of the father did not support that conclusion. The lower courts, the Court observed, had failed to consider the circumstances surrounding the killing. The accused bore ill‑will toward the victim, Bismilla, and carried out the act in the dead of night to avoid detection, bringing a torch with him and gaining entry to the house by stealthily scaling a wall. After the killing, the accused displayed a mood of exhilaration, indicating that the crime was not a sudden outburst of insanity but a pre‑planned act executed with cool calculation against a person he regarded as an enemy. Accordingly, the appeal was allowed, the earlier acquittal was set aside, and a finding of guilt for murder under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code was substituted. While the normal punishment for such a heinous, pre‑meditated crime would have been death, the Court considered that, given the earlier acquittal affirmed by the High Court, justice would be served by sentencing the accused to rigorous imprisonment for life. The Court also directed that the State Government arrange for the accused to be treated in an asylum until he is cured of his illness, if the condition persists. The appeal was therefore allowed.