Legal Provisions of Section 222 of Indian Penal Code, 1860.
Intentional omission to apprehend on the part of public servant bound to apprehend person under sentence or lawfully committed:
This section penalises a public servant who is bound to apprehend a person under a sentence or who has been lawfully committed but intentionally omits to do the same. It says that whoever, being a public servant, legally bound as such either to apprehend or to keep in confinement any person who has been sentenced by a court of justice for any offence or lawfully committed to custody, either intentionally omits to apprehend him, or intentionally suffers him to escape, or intentionally aids him in escaping or attempting to escape from such confinement, shall be punished with either imprisonment for life or with simple or rigorous imprisonment for a term extending up to fourteen years, with or without fine, if such person as stated above is under sentence of death; or with simple or rigorous imprisonment for a term extending up to seven years, with or without fine, if such person as stated above is by virtue of a commutation of such sentence to imprisonment for life, or to imprisonment for a term of ten or more years; or with simple or rigorous imprisonment for a term extending up to three years, or with fine, or with both, if such person is subject to imprisonment for a term not extending to ten years or if he was lawfully committed to custody.
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ADVERTISEMENTS:
The section requires that the public servant must be legally bound as such to apprehend or to keep in confinement a person. Such a person must be under a sentence of a court of justice for an offence or he must be lawfully committed to custody by a court of justice. Also, the omission to apprehend, or suffering to escape, or aiding in escaping or attempting to escape of such person has to be intentional. This section is similar to section 221 of the Code.
The offence under this section is cognizable, non-bailable if the case is punishable under the first or second para, and bailable if under the third para, and non-compoundable, and is triable by court of session if the case falls under the first para, and by magistrate of the first class if it falls under the second or third para.