Voluntarily Causing Hurt to Extort Property, or to Constrain to an Illegal Act Section 327

There are various provisions in the Indian Kanoon stating punishments for the various wrongful acts committed by the wrongdoers. The punishments for the laws related to criminal offences are stated in the Indian Penal Code,1860. The Constitution of India provides rights and powers to the citizens of the country. The Indian Penal Code states the punishment for an infringement of these rights of innocent people and for the offenders doing criminal acts by misusing their powers to dominate the victims and violate their rights.

Chapter XVI of the Indian Penal Code deals with the offences affecting the human body by causing hurt or grievous hurt. The term ‘hurt’ can mean either bodily pain, infirmity or disease. If someone does such an act to a person by which the latter ends up damaging one of his organs of the body or gets a disease or he suffers from some bodily pain then it constitutes ‘hurt’. Sections 319 to 335 of the IPC deal with provisions related to hurt. In this blog, we will discuss all Section 327 of IPC.

Section 327 of IPC

This section deals with the provisions and punishment of ‘Voluntarily causing hurt to extort property, or to constrain to an illegal act’. If a person voluntarily, with intention and knowledge of his actions and the consequences, hurts someone else to extort property or to constrain him to an illegal act against their will, the person will be liable under Section 327 IPC. 

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This Section states two types of offences. 

1. When a person hurts some other person or someone who is related to that other person for extorting some property or a valuable asset from him. He might scold and scare him if the latter does not do whatever the former asks him to do. For example, a man forces someone to sign documents of the property in the name of the former or ask him to sign a cheque. The force includes hurting the latter or blackmailing to hurt him or any person related to him like his family or friends. Another example, a man enters a jewelry shop and harasses in any way, the owner of the shop or the staff members of that shop, or the son of the owner and asks them to put jewelry in his bag. The harassment can be something varying from a slap or any form of a physical push or beating, to something major like putting a gun on the victim’s head or on the heads of people related to him. It is basically dacoity with the misuse of power. 

2. When a person threatens someone to commit a crime forcefully. For example, a person puts a knife on the victim’s neck or tells that he would kill his child or wife if the latter refuses to perform the act which the former asks him to do, and asks him to commit a certain crime like physically hurt someone or kill someone, or do harm to someone’s property. 

Punishment Under Section 327

The commitment of an offence under this section leads to imprisonment which may extend up to 10 years and shall also be liable to a fine.

Nature of Section 327

1. Offences under this section are cognizable which means offences, for which in a case the police constable can arrest the accuser without any warrant.

2. These offences are non-bailable offences,i.e, the grant of bail is not a matter of right and the culprit will have to go to the court where it will be at the discretion of the court whether to grant bail or not. 

3. These offences are also non-compoundable, which means these cases are not one where the victim enters into a compromise(monetary) and agrees to drop the charges against the accuser.

IPC 327 can be tried in the Court of Magistrate of First Class by the Trial Court – Court of Session. The Ministry concerned with this offence would be the Ministry of Home Affairs and the concerned department in this offence is the Department of Internal Security.

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Ingredients of Section 327 

1. The accused caused hurt.

2. To extort from the owner, or sufferer, or any other person interested in the sufferer’s property or valuable security.

3. To constrain the owner or sufferer or another person.

4. To facilitate the commission of an offence.

 

Some Famous Judgements: 

1. Lala alias Dharmendra Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh (2018)- 

In this case Gopal Giri, the victim/complainant was fetching water from a public tap at 12 in the night during the Nav- Durga festival. The applicant came up to him and asked for his cycle. When Gopal refused to give his cycle to him, the accuser got annoyed and caught hold of his neck and started abusing him. The incident was witnessed by Lala Srivastava, Kundan Singh, and some others as well. He threw him on the ground and even bet him with a lathi(stick) as a result of which the victim had 8 bruises on his lower back, left hand, left arm, right buttock, right thigh, the right side of neck, left buttock and left knee joint.

This case seems to be coming under Section 327 IPC but the court gave the judgment that this offence would be convicted under Section 323 of IPC and would not be punishable.  The applicant does not seem to have caused harm to the victim in order to extort his cycle, but he was annoyed and angry when the victim refused to give him the cycle and harassed him because of that annoyance.

2. Sh Mohd Akhtar Hussain Vs. The State Govt. NCT Of Delhi (2015) - 

 In this case, the prosecutrix complaint lived with her mother, and younger brothers. One night when her brothers were not present in the house, her stepfather and her two stepbrothers along with three other men barged into their house and started abusing her mother to withdraw all the cases filed by her against the stepfather. He started misbehaving with her and her mother. The stepbrothers started molesting her and threaten to rape her if the cases were not withdrawn. The mother called up the police and on knowing this they ran off by giving a threat that they would kill her and her daughter. At first, the case did not feel suitable for Section 327 as there was no actual extorting of money, but later it was argued. The judgment given was that this is convicted under Section 327 of IPC as the hurt was voluntarily caused for the purpose of constraining the sufferer to do an illegal act, which in this case was to withdraw the pending cases against the accused person. 

How can you file/defend your case for the IPC  Section 327 offence?

1. Since Section 327 IPC is a cognizable offence, the victim should first and foremost approach the local police and file an FIR, free of cost.

2. The police will then investigate the matter and might even arrest the victim if they find enough proof. And if no evidence is found, the case would not proceed further.

3. After investigation, a charge sheet would be prepared in which all the records would be mentioned.

4. The case would then be taken to court where the lawyers hired for each party would be heard and the judgment will be given.

Through Lawtendo you can connect to an appropriate lawyer for filing or defending your case for the offence under Section 327 of IPC. We, at Lawtendo provide around 15000+ lawyers all over the country on our online platform. Lawtendo strives to facilitate legal services that are consumer-oriented,i.e, cost-effective and quality legal service.