Provisions given in Sections 34 and 35 are complementary inasmuch as the principle embodied in Section 35 supplements the principle embodied in Section 34. Thus, where several persons are concerned in committing an act which is criminal only by reason of its being done with a criminal knowledge each of such persons who joins in the act with such knowledge is liable for the act in the same manner as if the act were done by him alone with that knowledge.
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Where several persons are engaged or concerned in the commission of a criminal act, they may be guilty of different offences by means of that act. (Section 38).
ADVERTISEMENTS:
‘This section’ refers to the doing of a criminal act about which all may be agreed, not in furtherance of the common intention of all as under Section 34, not on account of the awareness and sharing of the criminal knowledge or intention of the person or persons who may do the act by joining him or them as under Section 35, but on account of the totally different state of mind of the person who joins in the doing of the act in question.
Section 34 deals with the doing of an act with a general common intention, while Sections 35 and 38 deal with the doing of an act with or without any particular intention animating the parties in the doing of the act.
A attacks Z under such circumstances of grave provocation that his killing of Z would be only culpable homicide and not amounting to murder. B having ill-will towards Z and intending to kill him and not having been subject to the provocation assists A in killing Z. Here though A and B are both engaged in causing Z’s death, B is guilty of murder, and A of culpable homicide only.
When an offence is committed by means of several acts, whoever intentionally co-operates in the commission of that offence by doing any one of those acts, either singly or jointly with any other persons, commits that offence. (Section 37).
ADVERTISEMENTS:
This section deals with the commission of an offence by a series of acts or several acts and in so committing a crime ‘anyone co-operates in such commission, by doing anyone of those acts constituting the series, either by himself or jointly with anyone else, commits that offence’.
Illustrations:
(a) A and B agree to murder Z by severally and at different times giving him small doses of poison, A and B administer the poison according to the agreement with intent to murder Z, Z dies from the effect of the several doses of poison so administered to him. Here A and B intentionally co-operate in the commission of murder and as each of them does an act by which the death is caused, they are both guilty of the offence though their acts are separate.
(b) A and B are joint jailors, and as such, have the charge of Z, a prisoner alternately for six hours at a time. A and B intending to cause Z’s death, knowingly co-operate in causing that effect by illegally omitting, each during time of his attendance, to furnish Z with food supplied to them for that purpose, Z dies of hunger. Both A and B are guilty of the murder of Z.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
(c) A, a jailor, has the charge of Z, a prisoner. B intending to cause Z’s death, illegally omits to supply Z with food, in consequence of which Z is much reduced in strength, but the starvation is not sufficient to cause his death.
A is dismissed from his office, and B succeeds him. B, without collusion or co-operation with A, illegally omits to supply Z with food, knowing that he is thereby likely to cause Z’s death. Z dies of hunger. B is guilty of murder, but, as A did not co-operate with B, A is guilty of an attempt to commit murder.