Principle of Joint Liability

•General rule – The person who commits a crime has to face the consequences.

•Principle of Join liability is the exception of this general rule. For instance, To commit murder of X, A stands at the door as a watchman, B overpowers X and C inflicts dagger blow on X , here the acts are different but all are liable for the murder of X.

•This principle is also known as “Principle of joint criminal liability”, “Principle of group liability”, “Principle of constructive or vicarious liability” etc.

•It includes various Sections such as 34/3(5), 149/190, 120A/61(1), 460/331(8), offences related to dacoity of IPC 1860/ BNS 2023 etc.

What is Joint Liability – It means when more than one person commit any offence in furtherance of their common intention or common object then all the accused can be jointly tried for the offence and can be jointly held liable.

What is Constructive Liability –  It means the main offence is committed by one person and others are held constructively liable for the main offence because of their common intention or common object or Criminal agreement.


Let’s discuss some important Sections related to the Principle of Joint Liability.


How does Section 34/3(5) of IPC/BNS incorporate the principle of joint liability?

Section 34/3(5) states that when a criminal act is done by several persons in furtherance of the common intention of all, each of such persons is liable for that act in the same manner as if it were done by him alone.


The essence of joint liability under Section 34/3(5) lies in “common intention”.

“Common intention” :-

•Common intention means a prior concert or prior meeting or prior consultation of the minds of those involved in a crime.

•Meeting of minds means that each one of the participants knows and agrees with the mind of each of the others.

•Once an agreement to commit a crime is formed between them they become mutual agents of each other.

• And in order to show joint criminal liability it must be proved that the criminal act was done in pursuant to that agreement or the pre arranged plan.

Principles laid down in section 34:

[Mahbub Shah v Emperor AIR 1943 (aka Indus river case)]

1. Common intention must be proved to establish joint criminal liability.
2. Common intention means pre arranged plan and it must be proved that criminal act was done in pursuant to that plan.
3. For intention to be common it must be known to all members and must also be shared by them.
4. The criminal act must be done in furtherance of common intention of all.

Same or Similar intention:

Similar intention means when accused persons act simultaneously but do not share the intention with each other. In case of similar intention each one will be held liable for their individual acts and not jointly for the acts of others. [Mahbub Shah v Emperor AIR 1943]

Is active participation of every accused necessary?

The court answered this in the negative and held that even if a person who does not do anything but if they have common intention he will be liable. The court said ‘ they also serve who only stand and wait’. [Barendra Kumar Ghose v king emperor AIR. 1925 (aka Post Office Case)]

Is physical presence of all accused is necessary?

The court held that in offences involving physical violence presence of accused apart from participation is essential. However, in other cases involving non physical violence like miss appropriation,cheating etc could not be a condition precedent. [J.N. Desai v State of Bombay AIR 1960 SC 889]

How does Section 149/190 of IPC/BNS incorporate the principle of joint liability?

Section 149/190 provides that If an offence is committed by any member of an unlawful assembly in prosecution of the common object of that assembly, or such as the members of that assembly knew to be likely to be committed in prosecution of that object, every person who, at the time of the committing of that offence, is a member of the same assembly, is guilty of that offence.


The essence of joint liability under Section 149/190 lies in “common object”.


“Common Object”:

[State of Punjab v. Sanjiv Kumar 2007 SC]

•Here ‘object’ means the purpose or object or ultimate goal and to make it ‘common’ it must be shared by all.

•It may be formed by express agreement after mutual consultation, but it is not always necessary in this case.

•It may be formed at any stage by all or a few members and the other members may be just join and adopt it.

•Also it may be modified or altered or abandoned by any member at any stage.

For instance:  Kabil Cazee v Emperor 1869 , One group of people stopped another group and a fighting started between the two in the course of which a person belonging to the first group was injured. He withdrew himself to one side taking no further part in the fighting. Sometime thereafter, a person belonging to the other group was killed. It was held that the injured person who had withdrawn earlier could not be held guilty of the subsequent murder even though he was liable for everything that had taken place before he withdrew.


•Common Object is different from common intention as it does not require a prior meeting of minds before the attack.

•It is enough if each member of unlawful assembly has the same object in view and their number is 5 or more and that as an assembly to achieve that object.


Direct connection between the common object and the act committed:


The prosecution must establish that there was a direct link between the common object of an unlawful assembly and the act committed by its members.

For instance: In Allauddin Mian v State of Bihar 1988 SC , two members of an unlawful assembly went after a person with the common object of causing his death, who ran into a room of his house to defend himself. His wife did not allow him to go out as a result of which the attackers, in frustration, fired at two daughters of suspected victim playing outside and killed them. the Supreme Court held that only these two accused persons guilty of murder, and acquitted rest of the members of the assembly as they had no common object to kill the ultimate victims, nor was the same incidental to their object.

Difference between Common Intention (Section 34) and Common Object (Section 149).

S.No.	SECTION 34/3(5)	SECTION 149/190
1.	Meeting of minds is a requirement under Section 34/3(5).	It is not necessary under Section this Section.
2.	It is merely a rule of evidence, it does not create any specific offence.	It creates a specific offence as being a member of unlawful assembly is in itself an offence.
3.	To attract Section this section number of accused is immaterial, there must be more than 1 person.	It requires a minimum number of 5 persons.
4.	Some active participation of all must be proved under this Section, however small the act may be.	Being a member of unlawful assembly is sufficient to attract this Section.
5.	Common intention may be any intention to commit any offence under this Section.	Common Object means those objects as mentioned in Section 141/189(1).

For your convenience, we have taken the help of various books like T. Bhattacharya, Ratanlal and Dhirajlal, K.D. Gaur, Samarth Agarwal etc.