400
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
10
CHAPTER III-EXCUSES AND JUSTIFICATIONS,
19.-Children under seven.
No one whose age does not exceed seven years shall be A. 21. convicted of any offence.
20.—Children between seven and fourteen.
No one whose age exceeds seven, and does not exceed fourteen years, shall be convicted of any offence unless it appears to the jury or Justice of the Peace, as the case may be, that at the time he committed the offence he had sufficient intelligence to know the nature and consequences of his conduct and to appreciate that it was wrong.
21.-Insanity.
A person is not criminally responsible for an act done by him if it is proved that, at the time of his doing such act, he was rendered incapable by natural imbecility or disease of, or affecting, the mind
of appreciating the nature and quality of his conduct ;
or
·
of controlling his actions; or
of appreciating that his conduct was morally wrong or illegal.
22-Insanity when no defence.
B. 20.
C. 29.
A. 22. 29.
B. 21.
A. 23.
B. 22.
C. 27.
India 54.
B. 22.
A person labouring under delusions, but in other respects A. 23. sane, shall not be acquitted on the ground of insanity, unless C. 27. the delusions caused him to believe in the existence of some India 54. state of things which, if it existed, would justify or excuse his act; provided that insanity before or after the time when he committed the act, and any insane delusions may be evidence that the offender was, at the time when he committed the act, in such a condition of mind as to entitle him to be acquitted on the ground of insanity.
Every one committing an offence shall be presumed to be sane until the contrary is proved.
23.-Drunkenness.
་
Voluntary drunkenness is not a disease affecting the mind C. 28. within the meaning of Section 21; but involuntary drunken- Cod Bill,
and disease caused by voluntary drunkenness, so far
any as they affect the mind, are such a disease.
ness,
If the existence of a specific intention is essential to the commission of an offence, the fact that the offender was drunk, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, when he did the act which, if coupled with that intention, would constitute such offence, may be taken into account by the jury in deciding whether he had that intention.
For the purpose of this section drunkenness may include stupefaction or any other mental state produced by a drug.
1878, ». 21.
i
A. 24. B. 23.
C. 31. India 94. Report, pp.
10, 18, 43. Stephen's Digest,
Art 32.
C. 25.
11
24.-Compulsion.
Compulsion by a threat of immediate death, of any bodily injury likely to cause death, or of any grievous bodily injury from a person actually present at the commission of the offence and in a position to carry out such threat, shall be an excuse for the commission of any offence under this Code, other than-
any offence punishable by death; or
any offence punishable by penal servitude for life. in which the infliction of a bodily injury, wounding, or
causing actual bodily injury is an element; or
rape, robbery, and setting fire to any house, ship, or
mine:
provided that the person under compulsion Feasonably believes himself to be unable to escape from the execution of the threat otherwise than by the commission of the offence; provided also that he is not a party to any association or conspiracy, the being party to which renders him subject to such compulsion.
No presumption shall be made that a married woman com- mitting an offence in the presence of her husband does so under compulsion.
25.—Necessity.
No net is an offence if it is done only in order to avoid Code Bill, consequences which could not otherwise be avoided, and which 1878, s. 23. if they had followed would have inflicted upon the person Report, pp. 10, 18, 43 doing the act, or upon others whom he was bound to protvet. Stephen's inevitable and irreparable evil, and if no more is, done than is Digest,
reasonably necessary for that purpose, and if the evil intended Art. 33.
to be inflicted by such act is neither intended nor likely to be disproportionate to the evil intended to be avoided,
C. 23.
No act which causes injury to the person of another is an offence if the person doing it is, without any fault on his part, so situated at the time that he cannot avoid doing that act without doing some other aet which is equally likely to cause injury to some other person, not being himself, and if he does the one act only in order to avoid doing the other,
[Nothing herein contained shall justify any person in any net by which the death of any woman is likely to be caused, in order that any child of which she is pregnant may be born alive.]
26.-Intention.
Subject to the provisions of this Code relating to negligent acts, a person is not criminally responsible for an net which occurs independently of the exercise of his will, or for an event which occurs by accident.
Unless an intention to cause a particular result is expressly declared to be an element of an offence, the nature of the result intended to be caused by the act constituting an offence, in whole or in part, has no effect on the criminality of such
act.
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