CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS OF A CRIME : ACTUS REAS AND MENS REA

CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS OF CRIME

Mens Rea: 

One of the important essential of a crime is mens rea i.e. guilty mind. It could be defined as the blameworthy mental condition, whether constituted by intention knowledge or otherwise. Court in Staple v. United States defined mens rea as a state of mind indicating culpability which is required by the statute as an element of crime. 

In Brend v. Wood, Lord Goddand C.J. ruled that unless the statute expressly or by implication rules out the principle of mens rea as a constituent of a crime, the court shall not found the person guilty of offence against criminal law, unless he has a guilty mind. Supreme Court of India on many occasions reiterated the decision of Lord Goddand in Brend v. Wood. While opining about the rule of interpretation of penal provisions, Supreme Court in State of Gujarat v. D. P. Pandey laid down that whenever an offence is made by a statute, the element of mens rea should be understood as silently requiring by the provision, unless the statute express or implied the contrary intention. 

As regard to the presumption of intention, Lord Atkin stated that a person is presumed to intend the necessary or natural and probable consequences of his act unless the sufficient evidence existed for the court to entertain a reasonable doubt whether such intention existed or not. For instance in P.P. v. Beard, if a man throws a boy from high tower or cut off his head, he intended to kill him and could foresaw it. 

However, if A who is suffering from mental disorder hits B, then A will not be liable as his actions were not voluntarily. Similarly if A while shooting at tiger hits B, who was behind the bushes and cannot be seen by A, then too A will not be liable as he could not foresee his bullet hitting B, an act of accident. 

Therefore from the above two examples, test to determine mens rea can be laid down as follows;

1. Whether the act in question was the voluntarily one.
2. Whether the accused could foresaw the consequences. 

It is to be noted here, that single state of mind is no prerequisite for mens rea as it changes colour in different circumstances. For example: for offence to murder, it is the intent to cause death; for offence of rape, it is the intent to establish forcible cohabitation with the women without her consent.

Negligence : In some crimes, mens rea is not the necessary condition, but negligence is. For example killing of pedestrian by negligent driving or death of a patient by negligence of doctor are the offences which are punishable under section 304A of IPC. 

Intention and Motive : Motive differs from intention as intention is the operation of a will directing an overt act, whereas motive is the feeling which prompts the operation of the will. Understanding by example, we can take the example of a man who steals the food for feeding his child. Here motive is to feed the child which is the feeling to prompt the intention of stealing the food. 

Here the point to be noted is that criminal law takes into account only the intent of the person and not his motive. In other words a good motive does not make an unlawful act lawful or vice versa. For instance as in the above case the man he stole the food is still liable due to wrong intention irrespective of his good motive. The motive is not a sine qua non for holding one liable. In Om Prakash v. State of Uttranchal and in Yunis v. State of Madhya Pradesh, apex court clearly held that failure to prove motive is irrelevant when the guilt has already been proved otherwise. 

However, when the evidence were not sufficient to prove the guilt, the absence to prove the motive may lead to the acquittal of the accused as supreme court has already stated in Basdev v. State of Pepsu that is something which prompts a person to form intention. 

Intention and knowledge : Knowledge too differs from intention. Knowledge is the awareness of the consequences of the act. For instance, if a patient during a course of risky operation, for which he had given the consent, dies, the doctor wil not be liable for murder because although the doctor had the knowledge of the risk of death, he didn't intended it. 

Wilful Blindness Constitutes Actual Knowledge : In Michael Erin Briscoe v. The Quen, Attorney General of Ontario, the supreme court of canad held that wilful blindness constitutes actual knowledge to held a person liable for a criminal act. In the said case, B who saw a 13 year old girl being brutually raped and murdered by his companions at a secluded golf course, was held liable by the supreme court of Canda. The court observed that wilful blindness does not define mens rea requirement for a crime, rather it can substitute the actual knowledge, where knowledge is the component of mens rea. Wilful Blindness imputes the knowledge to n accused whose suspicion has arose to a level where he or she sees the need for further inquiries, but deliberately chooses not to make those inquiries.

Mens rea under Indian Penal Code : 

The doctrine of mens rea has no such application to the offences in general under Indian Penal Code, however the doctrine have been incorporated in sections itself by using the words such as intentionally, knowingly, voluntarily, dishonestly, fraudulently etc. The offences under Indian penal code virtually imports the idea of mens rea. 

Where the legislature omitted to lay down the requirement of mens rea in a particular enactment, the presumption should be that such an omission is deliberate and thus principle of mens rea should not be imported there. For instance in cases of sedition, wage war against government, kidnapping, abduction, counterfeiting government stamps etc. (Ranjit D. Udeshi v. State of Maharashtra). Nevertheless the courts in India have aslo imported mens rea while deciding cases, even in the cases of omission by legislature, relying on English precedents (Nathulal v. State of Madhya Pradesh, Daljit Singh v. Emperor, sadak ali v. Emperor, Ravula Hariprasad Rao v. State of Madras). 

In the exceptional cases of strict and absolute liability, a person may be convicted of an offence even without wrongful intent of culpable negligence. Supreme Court in the case of State of Maharashtra v. M.H. George held that in such cases it is no defence to accused that he honestly believed or reasonable grounds and in good faith that his conduct would be innocent. 

So as to conclude, the cases to which the doctrine of mens rea does not apply may be placed under four categories : 

1. Statuary offences of kidnapping, rape abduction and offences against the state and army etc. 
2. Cases of public nuisance, libel, contempt of court etc. 
3. Regulatory offences created by statute, im which although criminal proceedings are there, it is the mode of enforcing a civil right. For example violation of traffic regulation laws, municipal laws. 
4. Public welfare offences wich include socio-economic offences relating to food, weight, black marketing etc. 

Actus Reus 

To constitute a crime in common law, there must always be a outcome of a conduct a of a person, a physical conduct, which the law prohibits. For example : killing a man, raping a woman etc. A result of human conduct is an event which should be distinguished from the line of conduct which produced that event. No man can pursue a line of conduct without producing a continuous series of events, which may or may nor Constitute crime. For example : to murder a person, one needs to first either buy a gun a, or secretly takes away the gun from the owner, thus performing theft, thereafter he has to brake the window to enter into a house, thus performing burglary. 

It is to be noted that however harmful or painful the event may be, it is not actus reus, unless prohibited or forbidden by law. For example, a duly appointed executioner, puts a man to death in accordance to his sentence, will not be liable for murder. The 'reasonable man' test as in the law of torts has been replaced here by the doctrine of 'mens rea.'