Criminal conspiracy consists of two words,
“Criminal” any action which is unlawful in eyes of LAW which means any prohibited act
And
“Conspiracy” is when two or more persons constitute together to perform a crime at some point in time.
The basic definition can be seen under the Section 120A of Indian Penal Code as,
When two or more persons agree to do or cause to de done,-
- An illegal act, or
- An act which is not illegal means, such as agreement is designated a criminal conspiracy
Provided that no agreement except an agreement to commit an offence shall amount to a criminal conspiracy unless one or more to such agreement in pursuance thereof do some act besides the agreement.
It is known as “Inchoate Crime” because of the nature of the crime that, the action is not necessarily required to be complete but it is punishable at the stage of preparation.
Elements of Criminal Conspiracy
- There should be two or more than two peoples agree to commit a crime. This agreement can be expressly or impliedly. Also, the mutual understanding to accept that.
- All the members should have the specific intention to complete the objective of the conspiracy
- In some major states, the requirement of the “Overt Act” is mandatory for Conspiracy. As it means that, the criminal intention should be proved with all the evidence.
If a group is charged with 120 of Indian Penal Code, and all the elements are proved then
- If they conspire for the death of someone then,
Liable for imprisonment for life or rigorous imprisonment for more than two years.
- If involved in conspiracy other than criminal action then,
Liable for maximum 6 months of imprisonment or with fine or with both.
There are two types of Conspiracy, one is Civil and another is Criminal.
Civil Conspiracy –
when the crime is done against the specific person but it involves only when two or more persons conspire to do some act that is not a crime but it is unlawful which could result in injury to the other person. Individuals bring these types of cases.
Criminal Conspiracy-
when the crime is done against the society, state or the government and the accused are intending to commit an act, which is punishable in the eyes of law. These types of cases are brought by the federal, state, or government when found violation of rules.
Generally, there is no particular form that the agreement must take to make up a plan that was put together secretly by a group of people. Although many laws now require an obvious act as proof of an agreement to perform a serious crime, the plan is still mostly guessed based on what was knows from the evidence that strongly hits at but does not prove, something. So, individual partners in crime need not even know of the existence or the identity of all other partners in crime. Two people may be found to have planned criminally with each other simply by making separate agreements with a third party.
Once a person has entered into an afferent, it is very hard to limit the extent of that is a person’s responsibility for the acts of others included in the plan that was put together secretly by a group of people. Under united states federal law, members of a plan that was put together secretly by a group of people may be guilty not only of the crime of plan that was put together secretly by a group of people itself but also of the unknown crime committed by others members of the plan in support of it.
This blog is written by Abhay Srivastava, K.R. Mangalam University.
Some more of Abhay BLOGs,
Visit our Instagram page @lawyergyan at this link.
