Abetment

A college senior tells a junior, go on, steal the answer paper, I will keep the peon busy. The junior does it. Who is guilty? The junior obviously. But the senior never touched the paper. Criminal law has always treated the man in the background, the one who pushes, plans or helps, as a wrongdoer in his own right. Chapter IV of the Sanhita sets out exactly when helping, urging or planning becomes the crime of abetment, and what punishment follows.

In two minutes

A person abets an offence by instigating it, by engaging in a conspiracy for it where an act or illegal omission takes place, or by intentionally aiding it (BNS s.45); abetment is complete even if the act abetted is never done (s.46, Explanation 2).

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