Rethinking 'Insanity' Defence in the Light of Kumari Chandra v. State of Rajasthan: Are Female Murderers 'Abnormal'?

Abstract

This essay is based on the notion that although the criminal justice system is masked by the well-known fiction of neutrality, yet there is no doubt that it does discriminate on grounds of sex. The question of applicability of general legal defences to women offenders has come into limelight yet again with the recent judgment of Rajasthan High Court in Kumari Chandra v. State of Rajasthan whereby the alleged woman offender was acquitted of murder on the ground of insanity triggered by premenstrual stress syndrome. Somehow this decision, along with other decisions of similar nature in the past, reinforces the notion that women don’t commit homicide until they are mentally ill or unstable. This essay intends to critique the insanity defence used by lawyers to defend the acts of women offenders in light of the aforementioned decision and address the long-reverberating debate surrounding the medicalization of female offenders as ‘mentally ill’. While addressing this issue, the author intends to go beyond the standard feminist criticisms and draw upon her own argument, to highlight the need for formulating a female-specific defence which will accommodate the circumstances unique to a woman without syndromising her.