Mens Rea: Meaning, Origin and Explanation

This article titled ‘Mens Rea: Meaning, Origin and Explanation’ is written by Sahajpreet Bhusari and discusses the maxim of Mens Rea.

I. Meaning and Origin

Mens Rea is a legal term of Latin origin. In Latin, the term literally means ‘guilty mind’.[1]

II. Explanation

Every crime has two components:

1. The actus reus, or guilty act, is the bodily act of the crime.
2. Mens rea, or a guilty mentality, which is the mental purpose to do the crime. Mens Rea refers to criminal intent or a guilty mind.

In general, it refers to the mental state that must be present in order to convict a person of a specific crime. To prove an offender’s guilt in criminal law, the mens rea of the offender must be established.

The prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused was in a guilty frame of mind when committing the crime. The defendant must be aware of the facts that make his action match the criteria of the offence and be in a guilty state of mind.

III. Illustrations

Consider the following two accident situations.

A murdered a pedestrian without realising until it was too late that there was a person there. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to halt the collision and the pedestrian was killed. Because it was not his purpose to murder him and it was involuntary, A is solely liable for monetary damages in this case.

B, on the other hand, murdered a pedestrian despite the fact that he was aware of his presence. He did not even attempt to apply the brakes and slammed into him, instantly killing him. B is criminally guilty in this case because he intended to kill the pedestrian.

IV. Case Laws

It is the core tenet of criminal law that the mens rea element is indispensable to form a crime, the Supreme Court stated in People’s Union for Civil Rights v. Union of India[2]. The usual norm is that a penal statute must include a mens rea element. Only if the legislature specifically states otherwise will it be excluded.”

There are statutes and regulations in which Parliament has seen fit to create offences and make people responsible before criminal Courts even though there is an absence of mens rea, it is certainly not the Court’s duty to be acute to find that mens rea is not a constituent part of a crime, the Supreme Court of India said in State of Maharashtra v. Mayer Hans George[3].

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References

[1] Mens Rea, Available Here.

[2] AIR 1997 SC 568.

[3] 1965 AIR 722.

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1. Law Library: Notes and Study Material for LLB, LLM, Judiciary and Entrance Exams
2. Legal Bites Academy – Ultimate Test Prep Destination