Assessing The Criminalisation Of Non-Reporting Of Offences: A Study Of Compelled Speech And Personal Liberty
- IJLLR Journal
- Mar 28
- 2 min read
Sushil Kumar Dixit, Assistant Professor, City Academy Law College, Lucknow (Affiliated to University of Lucknow)
ABSTRACT
The criminalization of the omission to report the crime in Indian law, which is largely reflected in the Sections 176, 202 and 203 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC), along with procedural provisions in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC), creating an obligation on people to provide the police with information about their awareness of criminal activity, creates significant constitutional issues regarding the concept of compelled speech in Article 19(1)(a) and personal liberty in Article 21 of the Constitution of India This study takes a strict doctrinal approach, which involves legislative exegesis, case-law studies, and comparative constitutional studies, to assess the underlining principles, judicial interpretation, and normative conflict underlying these laws. The intention is to question the legality of these criminal penalties in a rights-based approach, predicting how they incumber affirmative speech requirements that could violate the right to chop and make personal decisions independent to the right to silence. The key results indicate that, despite the noble purposes of the statutes, including detection of crimes and protection of people, they often fail to comply with the proportionality doctrine manifested through the lack of necessity and adequacy, especially in cases where non-serious crimes are committed or involved by non-citizens. Special attention is paid to such cases as the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, where the mandatory reporting conflicts with the rights to privacy in the cases of child protection. The study assumes that the reform of legislation, including the limitation of the application to the serious crimes and the inclusion of the safeguards like the anonymity, is necessary to harmonize the roles of government and the fundamental rights.
Keywords: Coerced Speech, Non-Reporting Offences, Personal Liberty, Proportionality Test, POCSO.
