WHAT IS ACTUS REUS?

Crime is a moral wrong that is committed against society in total. A crime is an act or behaviour that is not in accordance with the law and holds penal liability against the doer. The elements in a crime are, a) guilty mind, and b) the physical conduct, i.e., mens rea and actus reus respectively. Actus Reus is a Latin term which is considered as the physical aspect of a crime. It is a criminal act that has been committed voluntarily by bodily movements. The accused needs to have done something or omitted to do something, resulting in an injury to the body or the aggrieved property. However, an act alone does not constitute an offence. It can explicitly be understood by the Latin maxim “actus non facit reum; nisi mens sit rea” which means to constitute an offence. Both the elements must be present, i.e., guilty mind and the conduct should be present in the act prohibited by the law. Actus reus may be an act or omission.

The act may be conduct, and in an omission, the doer may have a duty of care against the victim, and he has omitted to do so. Such an act or omission must not be defended under the law. To establish actus reus, the advocate must prove that the accused was responsible for the act or omission prohibited by criminal law. In such cases, the advocate needs to prove that the crime is being committed voluntarily. When the crime was being committed, the accused was in a good mental condition and conscious to understand his act's consequences or omission.

If the defence lawyer takes a stand and proves that the accused was not in a sound mental state or the crime has been committed to change their mental state. In such a scenario, there is a crime, but the intention of crime is missing. In such a circumstance, out of the two elements of a crime viz. A) guilty mind, and b) the physical conduct, the guilty mind is missing because the act has been committed in an ill mental state. To prove the case, the prosecution lawyer needs to establish the correlation between the criminal and the crime. The established co-relation and the ingredients complied with, beyond all reasonable doubt, will be considered as a crime.

However, the exception to the doctrine of actus reus is when the criminal actions are involuntary. This includes acts that occur as a result of a spasm, any movement made. Simultaneously, a person is not conscious, or activities participated in while an individual is under a hypnotic trance. In these scenarios, a criminal deed may be done. Still, the element of intention is also supposed to be absent, and the responsible person will not even know about it until after the fact.  The provision as to when an act of a person, nonetheless a crime, cannot be held liable, has been incorporated under the chapter of general exception from Sections 76 to 106 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

Author: Shweta Singh