Name: Kaviya.S.

Reg. No.: BA0200022

Class presented on: 4/12/2021

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LAW OF CRIMES – I

CLASS PRESENTATION WRITTEN REPORT

Accident and Necessity (Section-80 and Section-81 of IPC)

General Exceptions:

Chapter -IV of the Indian Penal Code which includes Section-76 to Section-106, deals with
the general exception available for the crime committer. These are nothing but the
exceptional circumstances through which an offender can escape a criminal liability.

1) Accident (Section-80 of the Indian Penal Code)

Section 80. Accident in doing a lawful act. — Nothing is an offence which is done by
accident or misfortune, and without any criminal intention or knowledge in the doing of a
lawful act in a lawful manner by lawful means and with proper care and caution.

In general, an accident is a sudden unintended act or an act that occurred by chance without
an apparent cause. Accident is considered a defence under law as per Section-80 of the Indian
Penal Code. This principle is associated with the theory of mens rea. Any act of a person to
be justified as a crime must have both physical (actus reaus) and mental (mens rea) aspect of
crime. Hence, an accident does not constitute mens rea and therefore will not be established
as a crime or an offence.

Section-80 of the Indian Penal Code elucidates that anything done accidently or
misfortunately without a criminal intention in doing a lawful act in a lawful manner by all
lawful means along with proper care and caution will only be not defined as an offence. So,
we must also understand from this that if a person commits an offensive act by accident or
misfortune, even if it is done without a criminal intention, then that cannot be considered an
exceptional circumstance.

Even though both accident and misfortune are more or less the same, they denote the
difference in effect caused. An accident involves injury only to other party whereas
misfortune causes injury to both the parties. Two cars colliding with each other and the
drivers getting hurt would be an example to the case of misfortune.

Essential elements of “Accident” in Indian Penal Code:

a) The act committed must be an accident or misfortune.

b) The act must not be committed with a criminal intent or knowledge.
c) The accident must be an outcome of a lawful act done in a lawful manner by lawful
means.
d) The act must have been committed with due care and caution.

Burden of proof - To make use of the Exception provided under Section-80 the person
accused of the offence should prove that they are not guilty and that the act was
committed accidently. Therefore, the burden of proof lies on the person accused.

Case Law: In the case of Tunda v Rex 1950, the accused and the deceased were friends
who were wrestling fans and were engaged in a wrestling bout. During the match the head
of the deceased came in contact with a concrete platform that resulted in injuries and
subsequently to the death of the deceased. The accused was tried under Section 104 of
IPC, punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. However, the court
held that as there was an implied consent from both the parties to suffer any accidental
injuries, the act was an accident and there was no foul play on the part of the accused.

2) Necessity (Section-81 of the Indian Penal Code)

Section 81. Act likely to cause harm, but done without criminal intent, and to prevent other
harm. — Nothing is an offence merely by reason of its being done with the knowledge that it
is likely to cause harm, if it be done without any criminal intention to cause harm, and in
good faith for the purpose of preventing or avoiding other harm to person or property.

Similar to Section-80, the doctrine of necessity given in Section-81 is also recognized as a

defense against criminal liability. The legal context involved here is that in certain
circumstances the evil of obeying the law is greater than the evil of breaking it. In the
illustrations given in this Section, the captain opting to run down the smaller ship or a person
pulling down houses to prevent the spread of fire is not considered an offence as it is done
without any criminal intent as such. Even though, nothing specific to greater evil or lesser
evil is mentioned in this section in effect it deals with the case of lesser evil.
Essential elements of “Necessity” in Indian Penal Code:

a) The act must have been done without any criminal intention to cause harm:

Any act done without a criminal intention is required to use the defense provided in Section-
81 of the Indian Penal Code.

Example: Person A sees a tiger and shoots it out of fear of being attacked and killed by it.
And mistakenly the shot falls on person B and that person dies out of the bullet shot. The
essential element, criminal intention is not present with A hence A is of no offence as it was
not A’s intention to kill B.

b) Principle of good faith:

Similarly, any act done with a good intention or done in order to avoid other harm to any
person or property, given that there is no criminal intent and that the person is not aware of
the harmful consequence then such act will not be considered an offence.

c) Principle of no other alternative:

Any act committed causing harm to other person or property with an objective to prevent or
avoid some other harm will not be considered an offence. However, such act must have been
done so as to prevent or avoid a greater or more dangerous harm. Therefore, it is to be noted
that this Section-81 of Indian Penal Code allows any person to do lesser evil act to prevent a
greater evil act.

In any situation during which a person is in a compulsion to do some illegal act then they can
make use of the defense of Section-81 of Indian Penal Code, which says no one can be guilty
of a crime which is committed without the will and intention of the mind.

Case Law: In the case of R v. Dudley and Stephens (1884) three adults and one minor got
trapped together in a ship after a shipwreck without food and water. As their food ran out
seven days before the storm, they had no food and water for five days. As per the suggestion
of Dudley, the minor boy was killed as he was too weak to survive and the other three fed on
his blood and flesh. Four days after this the crew members were rescued. However, as the
defense of necessity was not held valid, a jury of five judges considered it as murder and gave
a sentence of death. Later on the grounds of mercy it was commuted to 6 months of
imprisonment.