General Exceptions Questions and Answers

Answer: D

A is liable for no offence.

Section 80 IPC: nothing is an offence which is done by accident or misfortune, without any criminal intention or knowledge, in doing a lawful act in a lawful manner by lawful means and with proper care and caution. Its own illustration is a man working with a hatchet whose head flies off and kills a bystander.

The question states there was no negligence, so causing death by negligence (Section 304A) does not apply. With no intention or knowledge, there is no murder or culpable homicide either.

Answer: B

Section 82 of the Indian Penal Code provides that nothing is an offence which is done by a child under seven years of age, option B. A child that young is conclusively presumed to be incapable of forming criminal intent. Section 83 deals with a child above seven and under twelve who has not attained sufficient maturity of understanding, so twelve years (A) is the limit of that section and not section 82. The ages of sixteen and eighteen in options C and D do not appear in these provisions.

Answer: A

The key accepts reason ‘a’. A and Z agreed to fence with each other, and under Section 87 of the Indian Penal Code, consent given to an act not intended or known likely to cause death or grievous hurt excuses harm caused by it. Z was injured by a foul although A played fairly, so there is no offence by virtue of the consent. Reasons ‘c’ and ‘d’ assume a knowledge or bad intention that the facts do not show, and ‘b’ adds the prize, which is not the ground of the exception.

Answer: A

Non compos mentis means not of sound mind.

The Latin phrase is used for a person who lacks a sound mind and so cannot understand the nature of his acts, as in the law of insanity.

Lack of the mens rea, inability to know that an act is wrong, and a concussion of the brain are different matters, so the first option gives the plain meaning. The words are Latin for not of sound mind and are used in law for lunatics, whose acts are protected by the exception for unsoundness of mind.

Answer: A

The injury is negligible and its nature is very minor.

Section 95 of the Indian Penal Code expresses the maxim de minimis non curat lex: an act is not an offence when the harm is so slight that no person of ordinary sense and temper would complain of it. The key takes (a) as true, with (d) as the reason.

The relation between the victim and the wrongdoer, or whether they were related by circumstances, does not decide whether the section applies, so (b) and (c) are not true.

Answer: B

Moral insanity, a derangement of the will or moral sense with the intellect intact, and the plea of an uncontrollable or irresistible impulse are not recognised as defences in Indian criminal law. Section 84 IPC exempts only an act done by a person who, because of unsoundness of mind, is incapable of knowing the nature of the act or that it is wrong or contrary to law. A person acting from vicious or irresistible impulse therefore remains liable, so both the assertion and the reason point towards criminal liability. This matches the option that both statements attract criminal liability. The other options either wrongly treat the statements as not leading to liability or wrongly separate them.

Answer: B

Section 84 IPC provides the defence of unsoundness of mind: 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 or that it is wrong or contrary to law. Both statements describe this: a disorder of mind impairing the mental faculties, and insanity impairing the cognitive faculty so that criminal liability is exempted. Both agree with section 84 and are explanations of it. The test applied by Indian courts is the cognitive test derived from the M'Naghten Rules, which is why the options that treat one statement as only supporting the other, or as speaking about different rules, are incorrect.

Answer: D

Section 84 of the Indian Penal Code protects an act of a person of unsound mind who, at the time of the act, is incapable of knowing the nature of the act, or that it is wrong, or that it is contrary to law. All three forms of incapacity count, so option D, all of the above, is correct. It is the cognitive incapacity at the time of the act, not mere eccentricity, that gives the defence. The Section also requires that the unsoundness of mind existed at the time of the act, which is a question of fact, and the accused must show it by evidence, though the burden is lighter than the prosecution's.

Answer: A

The maxim de minimis non curat lex means that the law does not take notice of trifling matters. The keyed answer reads it as relating to slight harm, since the law does not concern itself with injuries so slight that they do not deserve a remedy.

Trifles describes the same idea in other words and is close to the keyed answer, but the key chooses the first option. Exhibition of disrespect and annoyance are not the subject of the maxim. The answer given is slight harm.