INSANITY AS A DEFENSE relies on traditional psychiatric testimony, but al­ lows for only limited defense and it is argued that the 'mens rea' is still an insanity defense (Steadman et al, 1989), although the number of insanity acquit­ tals have diminished substantially following 'abolition' of insanity defense. THE SCENARIO IN INDIA The law relating to insanity is laid down in the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which in substance is the same as Mc'Naughten Rule. Section 84 of IPC 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 that he was doing or that it was wrong or contrary to the law (Saxena, 1992). The object of the legal test, as distinguished from the medical test, is to determine the criminality of the act to ascertain how far 'guilty intent and knowledge' can be attributed to a person of unsound mind. It is necessary for application of section 84 of IPC to show that (1) the accused was of unsound mind (2) he was of unsound mind at the time of the commission of the act, not before or after and, (3) he, by reason of insanity, was incapable of knowing the act and that what he was doing was wrong and contrary to the law. It is not sufficient to prove merely the presence of mental derangement or psychotic illness. The accused must prove that his cognitive faculties were so impaired that he was deprived of understanding the nature of the act or distinguish right from wrong; 'Wrong' here means moral and not legal wrong (Kherajmal vs State, 1955). Besides, the state of mind should be proved at the time of commission of the act, not before or after, although to arrive to this conclusion, certain corroborative evidence such as absence of malice, after-thought, application of excessive violence, im- pulsivity, lack of meticulous planning, lack of guilt, insight andjudgement (Rath & Dash, 1990) may be helpful (Shivraj Singh vs State of Madhya Pradesh, 1959). Other characteristics of homicide committed by the insane are want of secrecy, lack of conceal­ ment, want of accomplices, indifference to the crime and multiple murders (Verma & Jha, 1966). ASSESSMENT OF CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY The assessment of criminal responsibility is replete with difficulties, particularly in the retrospective evaluation of the criminal defendant on any specific insanity standard. As yet there is no instrument that can precisely determine the mental condition of the accused at the time of commission of the crime. It has to inferred from the evidence of persons who happened to observe the behavior and conduct of the accused prior to, during and after the commission of the offence and on the basis of avail­ able medical evidences (Globogin et al, 1984). Efforts have been made in this direction by devis­ ing two clinical instruments, Mental State at the Time of Offence Screening Evaluation (MSE), (Rogers, 1987); and Roger's Criminal Respon­ sibility Assessment Scale (R-CARS). MSE has three components, history of mental disorder, psychologi­ cal impairment at the time of crime and current mental state. MSE demonstrated high agreement where the criminal responsibility was not an issue (97%) but was much less accurate (50%) where insanity was raised as defence (Roger, 1987). R- CARS evolved from a simple likert like scale. It consists of 30 individual assessment criteria and responses to these criteria are investigated through the use of three decision model: Mc'Naughten Rule, ALI and NGBRI. Independent clinicians utilizing R-CARS showed nearly prefect (97% concordance rate and Kappa co-efficient = 0.58) agreement (Rogers et al, 1984). R-CARS can discriminate in­ termediate range of impairment from GBMI stand­ ard and can distinguish the sane from the insane according to Mc'Naughten Rule. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR OUR COUNTRY In our country, serious controversy in this field does not occur and psychiatry and law co-exist with mutual trust and understanding (Somasundaram, 1992). The only insanity defense open is the Mc'­ Naughten Rule incorporated in the Indian Penal Code. The number of psychiatrists giving testimony in such cases is very small and insanity is often inferred from the evidence given by lay persons (Somasundaram, 1960). In our opinion, psychiatry in India has developed at par with that of the developed countries; it is high time that it must be made obligatory to have independent psychiatric testimony in all cases like multiple murders, infan­ ticides, crime committed by an epileptic, apparently motiveless murders, and crime committed during puerperium. (Somasundaram, 1960). The experience of the United Kingdom or the USA should be kept in mind while formulating insanity tests for this country. We cannot and should not do away with the insanity defense altogether. 27