Rioting Under IPC

Rioting Under IPC

Author : Monalisha Singh

Introduction:

Peace and tranquility are the most essential things for the development and proper functioning of the society. If there is disorder in society or any other obstacle of a similar nature, society cannot provide a person with the opportunity to fully grow and develop, so it is imperative to maintain peace and tranquility for every society and nation like everyone else.

Disturbances of public peace are crimes not only against a person or property, but also against society as a whole. Crimes of this nature are committed by a group of people who share a common intention to disturb the peace and tranquility of the region and thus affect the whole society

Rioting is the offence against the public tranquility felled under the Section 146-148 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) 1860.

Crimes against the public tranquility are not crimes against one person or property, but against society as a whole. Such crimes are committed by a group of people who share the common intention to disturb peace and tranquility in the region and thus affect society as a whole.

Riot is act of civil disorder often committed by disorganized group resulted into violence of intense and sudden rash against people, public and authority. Historically the act of rioting happened due to poor working or living conditions of government like oppression taxation or conscription, conflicts between races, food supply etc. Individual may lead or control riots. Riots happened due to perceived grievance or out of dissent and generally occurred due to civil unrest , it is chaotic and exhibit herd behavior.

Legal Aspects and Essential For Riots:

According to Section 146¹ Whenever force or violence is used by an unlawful assembly, or by any member thereof, in prosecution of the common object of such assembly, every member of such assembly is guilty of the offence of rioting.

The rioting is the unlawful assembly of a particular state for an activity possessing a force or violence. The possessing of force or violence is the factor which distinguishes the riots from the unlawful assembly. Rioting includes both  i.e. i) Unlawful Assmebly plus ii) Force or violence.

There is distinction between the terms riots and rout but IPC has not any such distinction between both. As soon some act has been committed by the unlawful assembly for moving towards for the execution of common purpose and the rout become riot only when some act is committed in part of the execution of this purpose. A rout is creating disturbance and infringing public peace by unlawful assembly with an intention that if it executed then it become riots.

For constituting the offence of Rioting under Section 146² i) There Must Be Unlawful Assembly, ii) The Offender Shall be the member of this Unlawful Assemble, iii) There must be forced or violence used.

According to the decision of locus classicus Harzara Singh³the used force or violence must be for the execution of the common object of the unlawful assembly. So the use of force is the essential condition for riot, the mere intention of using force doesn’t suffice this sectionSection 141⁴deals with the unlawful assembly and which objects are deemed to be unlawful. For unlawful assembly at least five persons with common objective is needed. And the assembly is overawe by criminal force, or show of criminal force, to resist the execution of any law, or of any legal process, To commit any mischief or criminal trespass, or other offence.⁵ . The definition of force , criminal forces and show of criminal force are mentioned under Section 349 and Section 141⁶.

According to Section 147⁷ the offender who is guilty of rioting shall be punished for imprisonment upto 2 years, or fine or both. And as per Section 1488 the punishment for rioting with deadly weapon is imprisonment upto 3 years or fine or both. As per the ratio decidendi of a leading case of Allauddin Mian Shariff Mian v. State of Bihar⁹All the offender have common objective an there are relationship between all amongst them , So when offence is committed with common objective then every person is equally liable. So, if one person of unlawful assembly used the deadly weapon then all of them will be liable for deadly weapon.

END NOTES:

1. Section 146, Indian Penal Code 1860.
2. Ibid,
3. Hajara Singh v State Of Punjab , 1971, 3, SCR 674.
4. Section 141, Indian Penal Code, 1860.
5. Ibid.
6. Section 349 and 141, Indian  Penal Code, 1860.
7. Section 147, Indian Penal Code 1860.
8. Section 148, Indian Penal Code 1860.
9. Allauddin Mian Shariff Mian v. State of Bihar,1989. CrLj 1466, AIR 1989,SC 1456.