Criminal Intimidation, Insult and Annoyance

A landlord in Nerul tells his tenant, on the phone, that if he does not vacate by Friday his scooter will be burnt. Another man shouts a slur at a stranger at a signal, hoping the stranger will step out and fight. A third, drunk, staggers into a housing society's lobby and abuses the residents. Each one is frightening or humiliating another person, yet the law names three separate offences and asks for a different state of mind in each. The exam question is how you tell a threat from an insult, and an insult from mere annoyance.

In two minutes

BNS ss.351–355 (old IPC ss.503–510) punish threats with intent to cause alarm (criminal intimidation), insults that provoke breach of peace, statements conducing to public mischief, and misconduct by a drunk person in public.

The rest of this chapter

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