A 45-year-old chronic alcoholic male is brought to the emergency department with an alleged history of assaulting his neighbor. On examination, he is found to have irrelevant talk. He had not consumed alcohol for the past 4 days. He is diagnosed as a case of delirium tremens. In this condition, the person is:
Correct Answer: Not responsible for his act under section 84, IPC
Description: Ans. d. Not responsible for his act tinder section 84, IPC (Ref: Reddy 33/e p493, 29/e p432)"Delirium tremens is a severe form of alcohol withdrawal that involves sudden and severe mental or nervous system changes. It is considered as unsoundness of mind and not of intoxication. Thus if delirium tremens can be proved, the person cannot be held responsible for his offence under section 84 of the lPC.""Section 84 lPC states that: Nothing is an offence which is done by a person, who at the time of doing it, by reason of unsoundness of mid, is incapable of knowing the nature of the act, or that he is doing what is either wrong or contrary to the law.''McNaughton's RuleAn accused person is not legally responsible, if it is clearly proved, that at the time of committing the crime, he was suffering from such a defect of reason from abnormality of mid, that he did not know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or that what he was doing was wrong.Section 84 IPC states that: Nothing is an offence which is done by a person, who at the time of doing it, by reason of unsoundness of mid, is incapable of knowing the nature of the act, or that he is doing what is either wrong or contrary to the law."The insanity must be directly related to the offence in such a way as to satisfy the court that the mental abnormality had a direct causative relationship to the offence, and that the offence would not have occurred if there was no mental abnormality.It is necessary to show that the intellectual or cognitive faculties of the accused were so disordered, that his reasoning powers as to the facts and actions were not functioning normally.It must be clearly established that a defect of reason resulted from the 'abnormality of the mind'. The abnormality of the mind is any disease which is capable of producing mental dysfunction.However, when mental dysfunction is attributable to external factors (e.g. alcohol and drugs consumed voluntarily), this is not called abnormality of the mind.It is usually assumed to mean one of the major functional or organic psychoses.
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