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Abetment Conspiracy Main Points
Abetment Conspiracy Main Points
1) Abetment is a process by which one or more engage or employ other(s) for commission of an offence. The former i.e., the person, who
abets is called the ‘abettor’, while the latter i.e., the person who commits the offence with his own hands is called the ‘principal offender’. But,
conspiracy is a process by which an agreement is entered into between two or more persons for commission of an illegal act or
doing/committing a lawful/ legal act by illegal means. The parties to the agreement are called ‘Conspirators’.
2) In the offence of abetment a mere combination of persons or agreement between them is not enough but an act or illegal omission must
take place in pursuance of the conspiracy and in order to the doing of the thing conspired for, but in conspiracy, the mere agreement is
3) Abetment can be committed by one or more, whereas conspiracy can be committed by two or more.
4) In abetment, sanction of competent authorities is not necessary to proceed against the abettors, who merely abetted to commit
a crime while in conspiracy, sanction of competent authorities is necessary to proceed against the conspirators who merely
1. Abetment consists in instigating a person to commit an offence, or engaging in a conspiracy to commit it, or intentionally aiding a person to
commit it.
1. Conspiracy consists in an agreement between two or more persons to do an illegal act or to do an act which is not illegal by illegal means
and an overt act has been done in pursuance of the conspiracy in the latter case.
1 Definition: Definition:
2 Example : Example :
6 Punishment Punishment
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The offence can only be proved largely from inferences drawn from acts or illegal omissions committed by the conspirators in
2) Conspiracy is generally a matter of inference to be deduced from special acts or illegal omissions of the accused done in
pursuance of the common intention of the conspirators and the apparent criminal purpose in common amongst them.
As direct evidence is generally difficult to adduce in cases involving conspiracy charge, the prosecution generally depend on
circumstantial evidence relying on evidence of acts of various parties to infer that they were done in reference to their common
intention.
i) There should be prima facie evidence regarding the involvement of two or more people in forming an agreement;
ii) Then, anything said, done or written by any one of them in reference to the common intention will be evidence against the other;
and
iii) Anything said, done or written by the conspirator after the common intention was formed by any of them would be admissible.
Procedure:
Not only the intention, there has to be an agreement to carry out the object of the intention, which is an offence. Only entertaining a wish is
not sufficient to convict a person for criminal conspiracy though it may be an evil wish
4) As conspiracy is hatched in private or in secrecy, its objects are to be inferred from the circumstances and from the conduct of the
accused.
It is not the part of the crime of conspiracy that all the conspirators need to agree to play the same and active role.
To prove the charge of conspiracy, it is not necessary that the intended crime was committed or not.
Prosecution has to produce evidence not only to show that each of the accused has knowledge of object of conspiracy, but also
the agreement.
It is the unlawful agreement and not its accomplishment, which is the gist or essence of the crime of conspiracy though it is not formal or
express..