Criminal Law Videos - IPC Section 503 (Criminal Intimidation)

IPC Section 503 defines the offence of Criminal Intimidation. It says that whoever threatens another with any injury either to his person, reputation or property, or to the person or reputation of anyone in whom that person is interested, with the intention of causing alarm to that person, or to cause that person to do any such act which he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do any act which that other person is entitled to do, as the means of avoiding the execution of such threat, commits criminal intimidation.

There is an explanation attached to the section according to which a threat to injure the reputation of any person who is dead in whom the person threatened is interested, is within this section.

The section contemplates that the offender must threaten another with any injury to his person, reputation or property, or to the person or reputation, and not to property, of any one in whom that person is interested. The intention of the offender must be to cause alarm to the person threatened, or to cause the person threatened either to do any act which he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do any act which he is legally entitled to do, as the means of avoiding the execution of such threat.

The word ‘injury’ has the same meaning as given under section 44 of the Code, and therefore, threatening with divine displeasure or spiritual hardship and the like, cannot form the basis of any guilt for criminal intimidation. The language of the section unambiguously says that if the offender threatens not the victim but anyone in whom the victim is interested then the threat must be to the person or reputation of such person and threat to property has been deliberately omitted from this part of the section.