Legal Provisions of Section 39 of Indian Penal Code, 1860.
Voluntarily:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The section gives the word ‘voluntarily’ a meaning which is different from its popular sense. The word has been defined in relation to causing an effect. When one causes an effect by means whereby he has intention to cause it or which, at the time of employing those means, he had knowledge to be likely to cause it or had reason to believe to be likely to cause it, he acts voluntarily.
Therefore, intention, knowledge or reason to believe the likelihood of causing an effect have been given importance under this section. In the famous case of Olga Tellis v. Municipal Corporation, Bombay, the Supreme Court observed that when the slum-dwellers had put their huts on public footpaths and pavements, it had been done under utter helpless conditions and their moral right to survive and, therefore, they did not intend to commit an offence or to intimidate, insult or annoy any person in possession of the property. Consequently, they were not guilty of criminal trespass within the meaning of section 441 of the Code and their act was not voluntary.
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