LLM Group 5 Criminal Law and Criminal Administration Criminal Jurisprudence 2018 Question Paper with Solutions

The rule is not a presumption that everybody knows the law, which would be plainly false. It is a rule of policy, and three justifications are usually given. If ignorance were a defence, the prosecution would have to prove knowledge of the law in every case, which is impossible. The defence would reward the incurious and punish the diligent. And the content of a person's belief about the law is unverifiable, so the defence would be available to everyone and refutable against nobody.

In Indian law the maxim appears indirectly rather than as a section. Sections 76 and 79 of the Penal Code, now sections 14 and 17 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, excuse a person who by mistake of fact, and not by mistake of law, in good faith believes himself bound or justified by law to do the act. The words "and not by reason of a mistake of law" are the maxim, expressed as an exclusion.

The distinction is therefore the whole of the topic. A mistake of fact is a mistaken belief about the world: that the man in the dark was an intruder, that the goods were one's own. A mistake of law is a mistaken belief about what the law provides. The first may excuse if it is made in good faith, which section 52 of the Code and section 2(11) of the Sanhita define as requiring due care and attention. The second does not excuse at all.

The rule has real limits and a good note states them. Ignorance of law may be relevant to sentence, and courts routinely reduce punishment where a regulatory breach was innocent. Where an offence is defined so as to require knowledge of a legal state of affairs, for instance that property is stolen or that an order of a public servant has been promulgated, the prosecution must prove that knowledge, and the maxim is not evaded by calling it ignorance of law. Section 79 of the Code protects a man who in good faith believes himself justified, and a belief about ownership, though it looks like a legal belief, has been treated as a mistake of fact. And a notification that has not been published at all cannot bind, because the maxim presupposes that the law was ascertainable.

Criticism. The maxim is defended on necessity and attacked on fairness. As the volume of regulatory offences has grown, the assumption that the law is knowable has become a fiction, and the argument for a narrow defence of reasonable and unavoidable ignorance, particularly for offences created by subordinate legislation, is stronger now than when the maxim was framed.

Attempt. This is where liability normally begins, and it is the contested boundary. Section 511 of the Penal Code, now section 62 of the Sanhita, punishes attempts generally, and specific attempts are separately provided for, attempt to murder having been section 307 and now being section 109. Several tests are used: the last-act or proximity test of R v. Eagleton, (1855) Dears CC 515, the equivocality test, and the social-danger test.

Abhayanand Mishra v. State of Bihar, AIR 1961 SC 1698, settled the Indian approach. The appellant applied to Patna University to sit the M.A. examination as a private candidate, falsely stating that he was a graduate and enclosing forged certificates. The University issued an admission card, then withheld it on discovering the fraud. He argued that nothing beyond preparation had occurred. The Supreme Court held it an attempt to cheat, and drew the line at the point where the accused does an act towards the commission of the offence after his preparation is complete; the act need not be the last act within his power. The case bears on the note because it rejects the strict last-act test and makes the Indian boundary earlier and clearer.

Chirangi v. State, AIR 1952 Nag 282, is the strongest illustration. Chirangi Lohar, a widower living in Bastar with his daughter, his son Ghudsai and his nephew, took an axe and went with the boy to a hill to gather leaves. He was found later having killed his son with the axe. He said he had struck at a tiger. The medical evidence showed that a fall, combined with his existing ailments and failing eyesight, could have produced a state in which he genuinely took the object of his attack for a tiger. The Nagpur High Court held that he was protected by section 79: he had acted under a mistake of fact and in good faith believed himself justified in killing what he took to be a tiger, and had no intention of harming his son. The case bears on the note because it shows what "mistake of fact" does: the accused's belief about the world was wrong, his belief about the law was right, and the section excused him.

Conclusion. The two notes meet at the same point. Ignorance of law is no excuse because the law fixes an objective standard of what a person is answerable for, and refuses to make liability depend on the contents of his mind about the legal rule; the mistake that does excuse, under sections 76 and 79 of the Code and sections 14 and 17 of the Sanhita, is a mistake about the world, made in good faith. The stages of crime fix a second objective standard, this time about when the law will intervene: not at intention, ordinarily not at preparation, but at the attempt, and after Abhayanand Mishra and Mohd. Yakub an attempt begins as soon as the accused moves towards the offence rather than at the last act in his power.