Recent jurisprudence of ‘Extortion’ under Indian Penal Code, 1860

- By Sumeet Kapoor

The offense of Extortion is defined under section 383 of IPC, 1860. It is further dealt with from
Section 383 to Section 389. From the analysis of Sec. 383 it is clear that delivery of property
is the essential feature to constitute the offence of extortion. The word delivery is not defined
in the code. In general sense delivery can be said to be a change of possession from one person
to another. Inducing the delivery of any property or valuable security etc. by putting a person
in fear of injury is the essence of extortion. The accused must have obtained directly or
indirectly caused the delivery of one or more of the following- a) Any property, b) Valuable
security, c) Anything signed or sealed which may be converted into valuable security. There
can be no extortion where no delivery was effected. However, there can be the offence of
‘attempt’.

Two categories of Extortion

The Delhi HC in the case of Anil Kumar Rathore v. State, 2021 SCC OnLine Del 4491, in
paras 12, 13, 14 has interpreted the offence of extortion in following manner –

“12. The offence of extortion is dealt with in IPC from Section 383 to Section 389 as an
aggravated form of theft and which are essentially divided into two
categories of extortion. The extortion as defined in Section 383 IPC is complete with
satisfaction of all the three ingredients as dealt with and made punishable under Sections
384, 386 and 388 IPC. One can say that these three Sections get attracted when the
offence of extortion is committed on satisfaction of all the three aforesaid
ingredients of Section 383 IPC with the only offence being degree of gravity.

13. Now coming to the other category of extortion where the transaction of extortion is
not complete due to the last ingredient i.e. delivery of property/valuable security being
missing, despite the former two ingredients of fear of injury and inducement being
satisfied. These sections are Sections 385, 387 and 389 IPC and the common point in the
three sections is expression “whoever, in order to the committing of extortion……”. The
words employed in these three sections make the legislative intent clear that they relate
to a situation where the accused in order to commit extortion pushed the victim in
 fear of injury to cause inducement and not to leading to any delivery of property/valuable
security in favour of the accused.

14. The petitioner in the instant case has been charged under Section 387 of IPC and this
relates exclusively to the instance of admitted extortion where the entire
transaction of extortion as defined in Section 383 IPC is not complete.”

2. The Delhi HC in the case of Tasim v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2014 SCC OnLine Del 2572,
in para 16, has held the conviction of the appellants under this Section as illegal because the
ingredients of S. 387 were not been fulfilled.

“16. There are four illustrations appended to this section. All of them show that there
must be a delivery of a property or a valuable security or anything signed or sealed which
may be converted into a valuable security. Thus to complete the offence of extortion the
person who was put in fear must have been induced to deliver a property. In other words,
to constitute extortion, it is not enough that the wrong doer had done his part; it must
produce the result also. It if fails to produce the requisite effect, the act would remain
only at the stage of attempt…”

However, on the facts, conviction of the appellant was converted to that under S.503 IPC, 1860.

3. The Hon’ble SC in case of Isaac Isanga Musumba v. State of Maharashtra, (2014) 15 SCC
357 : (2015) 4 SCC (Cri) 652 : 2013 SCC OnLine SC 1251, (page 358, para 3) while quashing
the FIR against the petitioner/accused, has held as under –

“3. … In the complaint, there is no mention whatsoever that pursuant to the demands
made by the accused, any amount was delivered to the accused by the complainants. If
that be so, we fail to see as to how an offence of extortion as defined in Section 383 IPC
is made out. Section 383 IPC states that:

“383. Extortion.—Whoever intentionally puts any person in fear of any injury to

that person, or to any other, and thereby dishonestly induces the person so put in fear
to deliver to any person any property or valuable security or anything signed or
sealed which may be converted into a valuable security, commits ‘extortion’.”
Hence, unless property is delivered to the accused person pursuant to the threat, no
offence of extortion is made out and an FIR for the offence under Section 384 could not
have been registered by the police.”