Offences against public tranquillity

A society election turns ugly and forty people gather outside the secretary's flat shouting; a few start pelting stones. Are all forty guilty of rioting, or only those who threw the stones? What about the man who came to watch, or the owner of the plot where it happened? The answer depends on five words: unlawful assembly and common object. Chapter XI of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita is built on them.

In two minutes

Under ss.189–197 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, five or more persons with an unlawful common object form an unlawful assembly; if force is used it becomes rioting; every member is liable for offences done in pursuit of the common object or likely in prosecution of it; and two newer-style sections punish promoting enmity and harming national integration.

The rest of this chapter

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