Difference between Section 84 & 85 IPC in Hindi (Person of Unsound Mind and Intoxicated Person)

Difference between Section 84 and 85 of IPC

General Difference
Section 85 gives the same immunity to a man intoxicated involuntarily, as section 84 give to a man of unsound mind . Drunkenness is no excuse. However, delirium tremens (an affection of the brain caused by alcoholic excess) caused from drunkenness in the eyes in the eye of the law as it produces certain degree of madness. Incapacity to know the nature of the act whether it is wring or right. Hence the act of heavily dunked person is excused from criminal responsibility and also of unsoundness.

2. BURDEN OF PROOF

Section 84-When the plea of insanity is raised by the accused it is not the duty of prosecution to establish affirmatively that the accused was capable of knowing the nature of the act or of knowing that what he was doing was either wrong or contrary to law. Every person is presumed to know the law and the natural consequences of his act. The prosecution is discharging its burden in the face of plea of insanity, has merely to prove the basic fact and to rely upon the normal presumptions aforesaid. It is then the accused who called upon to rebut these presumptions and the inference in such manner as would go called upon to rebut these presumptions and the inference in such a manner as would go to establish his plea. The burden of proving the existence of circumstances bringing the case within the purview of section 84, therefore lies on the accused

Section 85-it deals with the act of a person incapable of judgment due to intoxication caused against his will or without his knowledge. To avail the protection of section 85, it is required for an accused to prove that the intoxication was not voluntary and that he, by reason of intoxication , lost the mental equilibrium to distinguish right from wrong or nature of the act committed by him. Both the questions of involuntary nature of intoxication, as well as its effect on his mental faculties, are questions of fact that need to establish by an accused. Evidence of drunkenness, short of requisite mental deprivation disentitles him the protective umbrella of section 85.