Compoundable offences

The Central government is proposing that Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code will be made a compoundable offence with the permission of the courts as suggested by the Law Commission and Justice Malimath Committee. Provisions will be kept to allow compromise and settlement between husband and wife at the onset of trial in dowry harassment cases, a Home Ministry official said. The Section 320 of the CrPC looks at compounding of offences.

Compoundable offences are less serious criminal offences and are of two different types mentioned in tables in Section 320 of the CrPC, as follows: 1. Court permission is not required before compounding – Examples of these offences include adultery, causing hurt, defamation criminal trespass; and 2. Court permission is required before compounding – Examples of such offences are theft, criminal breach of trust, voluntarily causing grievous hurt, assault on a woman with intention to outrage her modesty, dishonest misappropriation of property amongst others.

All other offences not classified as compoundable in Section 320 of the CrPC are considered non-compoundable offences. These are offences considered more serious in nature and they impact not only the victim, but society at large is also considered to be affected. Compounding can be done only upon agreeing by the accuser/affected party/victim. In some cases, only affected party’s consent is required for compounding, in other crimes the court’s permission is required in addition to victim’s consent.

Now IPC 498A is non-compoundable in most States except in United Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. This also means it is considered a serious crime and a crime against society, not just the woman. After recent bifurcation of Andhra into Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, not sure whether the compoundability automatically extends to Telangana or not. Quashing of the 498A case under CrPC 482 by High Courts is permissible.

There are some offences, which cannot be compounded. They can only be quashed. The reason for this is, because the nature of offence is so grave and criminal, that the Accused cannot be allowed to go scot-free. Here, in these types of cases generally, it is the "state", i.e. police, who has filed the case, and hence the question of complainant entering into compromise does not arise. All those offences, which are not mentioned in the list under section (320) of CrPC, are non-compoundable offences.