Legal provisions regarding Punishment of Criminal Conspiracy under section 120B of Indian Penal Code, 1860.
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Punishment of Criminal Conspiracy:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
As per Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, “(1) whoever is a party to a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence punishable with death, imprisonment for life or rigorous imprisonment for a term of two years or upwards, shall, where no express provision is made in this Code for the punishment of such a conspiracy, be punished in the same manner as if he had abetted such offence.
(2) Whoever is a party to a criminal conspiracy other than a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence punishable as aforesaid shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term not exceeding six months, or with fine or with both.”
For purposes of punishment, Section 120B divides criminal conspiracies into two classes: (i) A party of a conspiracy to commit a serious offence is punished in the same manner as if he had abetted the offence, (ii) conspiracies to commit any other offence and conspiracies to commit illegal acts other than offences are subjected to imprisonment for a term upto six months with or without fine or both.
Section 120B of the code is required to read with Section 196 of the code. It mandates a Court not to, without prior sanction of the State Government or the District Magistrate, take cognisance of a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence punishable with imprisonment of a term more than two years.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
No prior sanction of the concerned State Government or of the District Magistrate is required when the criminal conspiracy related to an offence punishable with imprisonment for two or less than two years’ imprisonment. For initiating criminal proceedings parties to a conspiracy made abroad, requires sanction of the Central Government. A conspiracy hatched in India to commit an unlawful act outside India does not require sanction of the Central Government.
Nature and Scope of the Law of Criminal Conspiracy:
1) Conspiracy is a substantive offence. The offence of criminal conspiracy exists in the very agreement between two or more persons to commit a criminal offence.
2) ‘Agreement’ is the rock bottom of criminal conspiracy. Its essence is the unlawful combination.
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3) To constitute a conspiracy, meeting of minds of two or more persons for doing an illegal act or a legal act by illegal means is the first and primary condition.
4) If there are more than two persons involved in a conspiracy and one or some of the other accused had been acquitted, the remaining accused (even if it is one) could be convicted under Section 120B of the IPC.
5) The gist of the offence of criminal conspiracy is to break the law.
6) The essence of the agreement to break the law is the agreement to do an illegal act. By virtue of Section 43 of the IPC, everything : (i) which is an offence; (ii) which is prohibited by law; and (iii) which furnishes a ground for civil action is an ‘illegal act’.
7) The essentials of a single conspiracy require that there must be a common design and a common intention of all to work in furtherance of the common design.
8) When an offence is committed by different persons acting in the same manner but independently, it cannot be said that there was necessarily a conspiracy.
9) It is not necessary for all the conspirators to know each other.
10) Every conspirator is liable for all the acts of the co-conspirators, even if some of them had not actively participated in the commission of the offence.
11) When the ultimate offence consists of a chain of actions, it is not necessary for the prosecution to establish that each of the conspirators had the knowledge of the conspired act.
12) Where the agreement between certain persons is a conspiracy to do or continue to do something which is illegal, the entire agreement must be viewed as a whole.
13) Conspiracy is a continuing offence and it continues to subsist and committed, if one of the conspirators does an act or a series of acts now and then.
Proof of Conspiracy:
1) A conspiracy is always hatched in secrecy. It is a matter of common experience that direct evidence to prove conspiracy is rarely available. It is therefore impossible to adduce direct evidence of the same. The offence can only be proved largely from inferences drawn from acts or illegal omissions committed by the conspirators in pursuance of a common design.
2) Conspiracy is generally a matter of inference to be deduced from special acts or illegal omissions of the accused done in pursuance of the common intention of the conspirators and the apparent criminal purpose in common amongst them. There must be some evidence on record which establishes such a common design.
3) As direct evidence is generally difficult to adduce in cases involving conspiracy charge, the prosecution generally depend on circumstantial evidence relying on evidence of acts of various parties to infer that they were done in reference to their common intention.
4) It is not necessary to prove that the perpetrators expressly agreed to do or cause to be done an illegal act as the agreement could be proved by necessary implication.
5) Conspiracy can be proved by circumstantial evidence, as it is the only type of evidence that is normally available to prove conspiracy.
6) The conditions for assessing the evidence of co-conspirators as laid down in Section 10 of the Evidence Act, 1872 are:
i) There should be prima facie evidence regarding the involvement of two or more people in forming an agreement;
ii) Then, anything said, done or written by any one of them in reference to the common intention will be evidence against the other; and
iii) Anything said, done or written by the conspirator after the common intention was formed by any of them would be admissible.
Procedure:
As regards procedure if the offence falls under Clause I of Section 120-B, the procedure to be followed is applicable to that offence which is the object of the conspiracy – that is to say, it is cognizable warrant or summons bailable or non bailable as the offence which is the object of the conspiracy.
It is not compoundable and is triable by the Court of Session if the offence which is the object of the conspiracy is triable exclusively by such Court; in the case of all other offences it is triable by the Court of Session or a Magistrate of the first class. If the offence falls under clause 2, a warrant or a summons may issue in the first instance. It is bailable and not compoundable and triable by a Magistrate of the first class.
Principles governing the law of conspiracy as laid down by the Supreme Court of India:
In State of Tamil Nadu v. Nalini [AIR 1999 SC 2640], when the main accused herself has admitted in her confessional statement that she had played a vital role in conspiracy for murder of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi and her confession is corroborated by other material and witness evidence, there is no need of interference in conviction under Sections 300 and 120-B of the IPC. In this case the Supreme Court framed the following principles governing the law of conspiracy after reviewing the judicial pronouncement on the law of conspiracy:
1) Offence of criminal conspiracy is committed when two or more persons agree to do or cause to be done an illegal act or a legal act by illegal means.
2) Not only the intention, there has to be an agreement to carry out the object of the intention, which is an offence. Only entertaining a wish is not sufficient to convict a person for criminal conspiracy though it may be an evil wish.
3) Acts subsequent to the achieving of objects of conspiracy may tend to prove that a particular accused was a party to the conspiracy.
4) As conspiracy is hatched in private or in secrecy, its objects are to be inferred from the circumstances and from the conduct of the accused.
5) Conspirators may be enrolled one after another in chain. It is not the part of the crime of conspiracy that all the conspirators need to agree to play the same and active role.
6) There has to be two conspirators and there may be more than that. To prove the charge of conspiracy, it is not necessary that the intended crime was committed or not.
7) It is not necessary that all conspirators should agree to the common purpose at the same time.
8) Prosecution has to produce evidence not only to show that each of the accused has knowledge of object of conspiracy, but also the agreement.
9) It is the unlawful agreement and not its accomplishment, which is the gist or essence of the crime of conspiracy though it is not formal or express.
10) A Criminal Conspiracy is a partnership in crime and that each conspiracy consists of a joint and mutual agency for a prosecution of a common plan.
11) A man may join a conspiracy by word or deed. One who commits an overt act with knowledge of the conspiracy and others standing by conspirators are guilty.
12) A conspiracy is not broken into several conspiracies when a new member joins the conspiracy. It continues from the time of agreement to the time of its termination.
13) In the absence of proof, relatives or spouses providing food or shelter cannot be treated as members of a criminal conspiracy even though they may have knowledge about such a conspiracy.
14) In absence of evidence that accused had even knowledge of any conspiracy, the mere association with the main accused would not make him member of conspiracy because agreement is a sine qua non of offence of conspiracy.