Acts Done Partly Within and Partly Without India: Under the IPC, a person who is an Indian citizen can be tried by Indian Courts for acts done by them partly within and partly without Indian territories, provided that these acts together amount to an offence under the Code. This principle would continue to apply under the BNS.

The Foundational Rule and Its Statutory Location

Under the IPC, Section 4 extended the Code to any offence committed by any citizen of India in any place without and beyond India. The Explanation to that section clarified that the word "offence" includes every act committed outside India which, if committed in India, would be punishable under the Code. Flowing naturally from this framework, the principle was settled — as recorded in the authoritative commentary of Ratanlal & Dhirajlal — that "a person who is a citizen of India is liable to be tried by the Courts of this country for acts done by him, partly within and partly without the Indian territories, provided the acts amount together to an offence under the Code." The foundational authority for this proposition is the old Calcutta case of Moulivie Ahmudoollah (1865 2 WR Cr 60).

Under the BNS, this principle continues through Section 1(4) and Section 1(5). Section 1(4) states that any person liable, by any law for the time being in force in India, to be tried for an offence committed beyond India shall be dealt with according to the provisions of the Sanhita for any act committed beyond India in the same manner as if such act had been committed within India. Section 1(5) extends the Sanhita to any citizen of India for any offence committed in any place without and beyond India. The Explanation in Section 1(5) provides the definitional bridge — "offence" includes every act committed outside India which, if committed in India, would be punishable under the Sanhita. Nothing in the BNS displaces or qualifies the principle of composite criminality derived from the IPC; on the contrary, the wider and more consolidated framework of Section 1 of the BNS preserves and strengthens it.

The Essential Conditions of the Principle

The principle, when carefully examined, rests on two indispensable conditions. First, the person must be a citizen of India. This is not a minor qualification — it is the very foundation of the personal jurisdiction on which the rule rests. The courts have consistently held, most notably in Central Bank of India Ltd v Ram Narain (AIR 1955 SC 36), that if at the time of the commission of the offence the person is not a citizen of India, the provisions of Section 4 IPC and Section 188 of the Cr PC have no application whatsoever. A foreigner who performs part of his criminal act in India and completes it abroad is not covered by this principle; he is triable in India only if the entire offence or its decisive ingredient is located within Indian territory.

Second, the acts done partly in India and partly outside must together constitute a single cognisable offence under the Code or the Sanhita. The phrase "provided the acts amount together to an offence under the Code" is doing the most important legal work in this principle. It is not enough that the Indian citizen performed some act within India — it does not matter how trivial or preparatory that act was — and some other act outside India. What matters is whether, when those acts are read together as a composite whole, they make up the ingredients of a completed offence. If together they constitute, say, cheating under Section 420 IPC (Section 318 BNS) or criminal conspiracy under Section 120B IPC (Section 61 BNS), the offence is made out and the Indian courts have jurisdiction.

The Rule Against Fragmentation: Why "Together" Matters

The word "together" in the principle deserves careful attention. It reflects a sophisticated understanding of the way complex criminal transactions work. An offence like cheating, for instance, requires misrepresentation, inducement, and delivery of property. It is perfectly possible that the misrepresentation occurs in India through a letter or phone call, the inducement is reinforced in a foreign country through a meeting, and the delivery of property — that is, the loss — occurs back in India when the victim parts with money. Taken individually, each act might seem incomplete. Taken together, they constitute the full offence. The principle of composite criminality insists that the court look at the transaction as a whole, not at each geographical fragment in isolation.

This was the very reasoning that sustained the conviction in the celebrated case of Mobarik Ali Ahmed v State of Bombay (AIR 1957 SC 857). The accused, a Pakistani national based in Karachi, had made false representations to his victim at Bombay through letters, telegrams, and telephone calls, and through agents operating in Bombay. He induced the complainant to part with over five and a half lakh rupees. Although the accused was never physically present in India, the Supreme Court held that the offence of cheating had been committed within India because the deception was practised on a person located in India, who parted with the money in India. The criminal transaction — even though it was initiated from outside India — was completed within India, and the accused was therefore triable under the IPC. The Court affirmed the principle that the corporal presence of the accused is not necessary; what matters is where the crucial acts constituting the offence were done.

Acts Commencing in India, Completed Outside

The converse situation is equally important. What if an Indian citizen initiates an offence within India but performs the final decisive act in a foreign country? The principle accommodates this situation as well. As Ratanlal & Dhirajlal record in the commentary on Section 1 of the BNS, the rule applies to acts done "partly within and partly without the Indian territories, provided the acts amount together to an offence." There is no requirement that the initiating act or the terminal act must be specifically performed in India — only that together, the acts constitute an offence.

An illustrative scenario: A, an Indian citizen residing in Mumbai, enters into a criminal conspiracy with B to defraud a foreign company. In Mumbai, A sends a forged letter of credit to the foreign company. The foreign company, acting in reliance on the forged document, releases goods from its warehouse abroad. The loss falls abroad. Yet, A has committed forgery (Section 336, BNS) in India, and his act in Mumbai — the sending of the forged instrument — is an essential ingredient of the composite offence. An Indian court would have jurisdiction to try A for the offence because the acts, taken together, constitute forgery or cheating with the Indian act being an inseparable component.

The Connection with Section 188 Cr PC and Its BNS Counterpart

The procedural machinery for prosecuting partly-territorial offences is supplied by Section 188 of the Cr PC, 1973 (and its successor under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023). Section 188 provides that when an offence is committed outside India by a citizen of India, the offender may be dealt with in respect of such offence as if it had been committed at any place within India at which he may be found. The proviso requires previous sanction of the Central Government before any inquiry or trial can be held.

The Supreme Court in Om Hemrajani v State of Uttar Pradesh (2005 1 SCC 617) construed Section 188 liberally, holding that the scheme underlying it is to dispel any objection or plea of want of jurisdiction at the behest of a fugitive who has committed an offence in any other country. The Court held that if such a person is found anywhere in India, the offence can be inquired into and tried by any Court approached by the victim. The Court pointedly observed that the convenience is of the victim and not of the accused — a clear signal that the procedural machinery of Section 188 is to be read in a manner that supports rather than frustrates the substantive principle of composite criminality.

A series of Kerala High Court decisions — including Remia v Sub-Inspector of Police, Tanur (1993 Cr LJ 1098) and Muhammad v State of Kerala (1994 1 KLT 464) — have clarified that the sanction requirement under Section 188 operates only at the stage of inquiry and trial, and not at the stage of investigation. The police are therefore free to register an FIR and commence investigation into an offence committed outside India by an Indian citizen without first obtaining Central Government sanction. The sanction must be obtained before the Magistrate takes cognisance for purposes of inquiry or trial.

The Principle in the Context of Conspiracy

Nowhere does the principle of composite criminality operate more vividly than in the law of criminal conspiracy. A conspiracy, by its very nature, may be hatched in one country, planned in another, and executed in yet a third. Under the IPC, Section 120A defines criminal conspiracy as an agreement between two or more persons to do or cause to be done an illegal act, or an act which is not illegal by illegal means. The corresponding provision in the BNS is Section 61. The agreement itself is the offence — and an agreement can be partly constituted in India and partly outside.

In Ajay Aggarwal v Union of India (1993 3 SCC 609), the Supreme Court held that a conspiracy to commit an offence partly within and partly without India is punishable under the IPC, provided the offence contemplated is one under the Code. An act of conspiracy is complete the moment the agreement is made. If any part of that agreement is formed within Indian territory, the conspiracy has a territorial nexus with India and the Indian courts may take jurisdiction.

Section 47 of the BNS takes this further. It states that a person abets an offence within the meaning of the Sanhita who, in India, abets the commission of any act without and beyond India which would constitute an offence if committed in India. The new Section 48 of the BNS — a provision not found in the IPC — adds the converse: a person who, outside India, abets the commission of any act in India which would constitute an offence if committed in India is equally guilty of abetment under the Sanhita. These two sections, read together, ensure that neither the abettor who operates from inside India for an act committed outside, nor the abettor who operates from outside India for an act committed inside, can escape the net of criminal liability.

The "Found" Requirement and How It Works

Section 188 Cr PC uses the expression "he may be found" to determine the competent court. This word "found" has been authoritatively interpreted to mean the place where the accused is actually present before the court — not the place where he is discovered or where the offence was committed. In Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1910 13 Bom LR 296), the Bombay High Court held that even if a person is brought to India illegally, it is of no consequence — if he is present before the court, he has been "found" there for the purposes of Section 188. This ensures that an offender cannot defeat jurisdiction by arguing that his return to India was involuntary or irregular.

Foreigners and the Territorial Boundary of the Principle

The principle of composite criminality operates only against Indian citizens and does not extend to foreigners who perform acts abroad, even if some consequences of those acts are felt in India. The rule for foreigners is different: a foreigner is triable in India only if his act, or the decisive act completing the offence, was performed within Indian territory. If a foreigner in a foreign territory initiates an offence which is completed within Indian territory, he is, if found within Indian territory, liable to be tried by the Indian court within whose jurisdiction the offence was completed. The authority for this is the Bombay High Court decision in Chhotalal (1912 14 Bom LR 147). But if the foreigner's entire act is performed abroad, and he merely causes a remote consequence felt in India, that alone is insufficient to attract Indian criminal jurisdiction against him.

The Continuing Relevance in the Digital Age

The principle of composite criminality has acquired renewed importance in the age of digital transactions. A cybercriminal can be physically located in Mumbai while accessing a server in Singapore and causing financial loss to a victim in London. An Indian citizen operating a fraudulent scheme from a foreign country, using digital means, may be orchestrating acts that span multiple territories simultaneously. Section 1(5)(c) of the BNS, which extends the Sanhita to any person committing an offence targeting a computer resource located in India, adds another dimension to this principle.

Reading Section 1(5)(c) alongside the established principle of composite criminality, a court may take the view that where the digital acts constituting a cybercrime are partly performed in India — for instance, where the malware is loaded onto a device in India, even if triggered remotely — and partly abroad, the Indian courts have jurisdiction to try the entire offence. The principle established in Moulivie Ahmudoollah in 1865, and preserved without alteration in the BNS, has thus proven to be far ahead of its time — a principle of remarkable adaptability, equally capable of governing a colonial fraud involving rice shipments and a modern fraud involving cryptocurrency and virtual servers.