The Karnataka High Court has rejected the petition of the accused in the murder of a married couple, setting aside his claim of insanity as a defence. The order was passed by a bench of Justice M I Arun on November 3.
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In this case, the accused, Alphonse Saldanha, had allegedly stabbed to death Vincent and Helen d’Souza at Yelinje village in Mangaluru taluk in 2020.
Before the trial court, the accused’s counsel had used the defence of insanity, examining eight witnesses, including the psychiatrist who had treated him in prison.
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Saldanha had filed two applications before the trial court, one of which requested that his medical records be sent to the Forensic Psychiatry Department at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bengaluru under the Evidence Act. Another application under Section 105 of the Mental Healthcare Act sought his records to be placed before a Board for examination.
Section 105 states that if proof of mental illness was produced and challenged, it would have to be sent to a Medical Board, which would either examine the “mentally” ill person or submit an opinion via an expert committee.
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When the applications were dismissed before the trial court, the accused then approached the high court. He argued that as his case ought to have been referred to a board, the trial court should not have dismissed the application.
The Karnataka High Court bench said regarding this, “It has to be examined whether the evidence adduced by him is sufficient to prove ‘unsoundness of mind’.” The bench explained that not every mental illness under the Mental Healthcare Act would come to the extent of an unsound mind.
Thereafter, the court dismissed the petition, stating, “Nowhere… a question is put to him (psychiatrist) to speak about the unsound mind of the petitioner sufficient to establish his incapacity of knowing the nature of his act of killing the deceased or that what he did was either wrong or contrary to the law. Evidence of the other persons so far adduced… also does not satisfy the ingredient of unsoundness of mind.”