The Supreme Court has held that merely abusing a person in foul language does not fulfill the elements of the offence of Criminal Intimidation under Section 506 of IPC.

The apex court observations came on a plea filed by one Vikram Johar against the trial court and the High Court orders declining to free him from a criminal case.     

Johar had pled for discharge of offences under Section 504 and 506 as the trial in the lower courts had proceeded based merely upon the allegation that unknown persons with firearms had come with the accused, threatened, used filthy language and gone away. Johar, an insurance claim surveyor by profession, had given an adverse report regarding a fire claim; this annoyed the complainant and he concocted the whole story to harass Johar. The police, too, had found no evidence of offence.

In order to attract Section 506 of IPC, the court listed the following ingredients to be satisfied by the prosecution:

(i)    That the accused threatened some person.

(ii)  That such threat consisted of some injury to his person, reputation or property; or to the person, reputation or property of someone in whom he was interested;

(iii) That he did so with intent to cause alarm to that person; or to cause that person to do any act which he was not legally bound to do, or omit to do any act which he was legally entitled to do as a means of avoiding the execution of such threat.

SC has thus held that the discharge application — moved under Section 239 read with Section 245 of the CrPC — has been erroneously rejected by the Chief Judicial Magistrate. Ingredients of offence of criminal offence, since not satisfied, Johar stands discharged of all offences.

—India Legal Bureau