Intoxication as a Defence

The author Rishika Jain is pursuing law from Amity University Rajasthan. She is currently in her 2nd year and has a great inclination towards criminal law.

INTRODUCTION

What is your criminal obligation in the event that somebody messes with your drink, or furtively adds drugs to your pizza, and, "high" on liquor or different medications, you at that point perpetrate what might ordinarily be wrongdoing? The standard hypothesis is that the individual who is automatically inebriated has a guard in particular on the off chance that he is so "far gone" that he neglects to perceive some reality which a calm man must know about before he would cause criminal obligation for the offence—or even more so in the event that he has no clue at all what he is doing.

Indian Penal Code explicitly gives that intoxication will be considered to decide if the individual charged had shaped any goal, explicit or something else, without which he would not be liable for the offence. Intoxication is safeguarded access to the criminal respondent on the premise that, on account of the intoxication, the litigant didn't comprehend the idea of his/her activities or realize what he/she was doing. The protection of intoxication ordinarily relies upon whether the intoxication was intentional or automatic and what level of aim is needed by the criminal allegation. Under the Indian Penal Code, the criminal obligation under intoxication is referenced under segments 85 and 86.

WHY IS INTOXICATION A DEFENSE?

Intoxication may prompt a type of lunacy in which the perspective is briefly suspended. This condition is known as 'DEMENTIA OFFECTATIA'. In this condition, the individual inebriated can't have a clue about the results of his activities. He may likewise not have the foggiest idea about the demonstrations he performs. He won't have the option to pass judgment on his demonstrations or control his feelings in a condition of intoxication. Since 'mens rea' or guilty mind is a fundamental necessity of each wrongdoing, an inebriated individual can't be credited to such a state of mind as his brain isn't calm. Area 85 IPC and 86 IPC explicitly states that the thing causing intoxication must be controlled to him without his insight or without wanting to. This without a doubt implies that intentional intoxication isn't pardoned under IPC when wrongdoing is finished.

The two landmark judgments related to this context in English Common Law are that of D.P.P v. Majewski[i] and R. v. Caldwell[ii] where the focus of the judgments was the difference between Basic Intent and Specific Intent. D.P.P v. Majewski for the first time in Common Law differentiated between Basic Intent and Specific Intent. It recognized some crimes to require a specific Intent or a mens rea and that intoxication, in these cases could be used to deny criminal responsibility only if the individual in respect of these crimes could prove that the intoxication had prevented the individual from forming the desired mens rea.

INTOXICATION REFERS TO THE ABSENCE OF MENS REA:

The constituent elements of the crime are:

1. mens rea
2. actus rea

An individual when he is inebriated, the mens rea is presumed to be none. As the individual won't in an away from of understanding his activity so the primary concern of wrongdoing is missing. Mens rea is the psychological component of an individual's aim to perpetuate wrongdoing; or information that one's activity or absence of activity would make wrongdoing be committed. It is a necessary element of many crimes. There are practical reasons, too, for limiting any defence of involuntary intoxication to where it prevents the defendant from having mens rea[iii].

In Sarthi v. State of Madhya Pradesh[iv] three drunken accused persons had overpowered the deceased and made him unconscious by rough handling. They had, thus, the specific intent to cause grievous hurt till then, but the question with regard to the intent became dubious when the accused person hanged him from the ceiling without taking steps to ascertain whether he was dead or alive. The recklessness and gross negligence on the part of these accused, under a state of intoxication, gave the accused a benefit to be convicted for culpable homicide not amounting to murder instead of the offence of murder.

WHY ONLY INVOLUNTARY INTOXICATION IS TREATED AS A DEFENSE?

The intoxication in order to be available as a defence must be of that degree and extent as renders the defendant practically an automation[v] and the burden of proof of lack of capacity to entertain the required criminal intent is upon the defendant[vi]. The inquiry, concerning whether the inebriation is protected while deciding sentence, came up for thought under the watchful eye of this Court in Bablu v. Province of Rajasthan[vii], wherein the Supreme Court held that the safeguard of intoxication can be profited of just when it creates such a condition as the charged loses the imperative goal for the offence and onus of confirmation about the explanation of intoxication, because of which the accused had gotten unable for having specific information in shaping the specific goal, is on the denounced. These segments don't ensure somebody who intentionally burned through intoxicants as the individual loses his psychological capacity due to his consensual demonstration for example by self-induced intoxication.

By selectively making voluntary intoxication a partial excuse, legislators have mixed up the policy objective of discouraging intoxication-induced crimes with the need to recognize defences that acknowledges the involuntary elements of the defendant's conduct. In R v Caldwell[viii] a majority of the House of Lords held that evidence of intoxication would not be relevant if the offence charged was one for which recklessness would be sufficient to constitute the mental element. This development has not found favour in some common law jurisdictions.

Voluntary drunkness is no defence for the commission of a crime. Intoxication is a voluntary species of madness that is in the party’s power to abstain from, and he must answer for it. But when the intoxication is involuntary i.e., intoxicant is administered to him without his knowledge or against his will then his criminal act will be judged with reference to his mental condition at the time when the act was committed.

CONCLUSION

The pursuit of drugs—whether alcohol, opium, marijuana, or cocaine—is universal and inescapable. It is to be found across time and species and in the private lives of presidents and citizens alike. Voluntary intoxication of any degree affords the accused no excuse of crime. This rule is founded on the belief that one who voluntarily places himself in a condition of intoxication must be held to intend any consequences of that incapacity. In any case, though voluntary drunkness is no excuse for knowledge, it does not imply actual knowledge giving rise to the inference of presumed intention.

References:

[i] (1976) UKHL 2, (House of Lords).

[ii] (1981) AC 341, (Court of Appeals).

[iii] Spencer, J. (1994). Involuntary Intoxication as a Defence. The Cambridge Law Journal, 53(1), 6-9, Volume 53, Issue 1.

[iv] (1976) Cri. L.J. 2010.

[v] Tata v. Commonwealth, (1935) 258 Ky. 685.

[vi] Wilson v. State, 60 N.L.J. 171.

[vii] [(2006) 13 SCC 116 : (2007) 2 SCC (Cri) 590].

[viii] (1981) 1 All ER 961.

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