Samaranayake V. Jayasinghe

1948     Present: Basnayake J.

SAMARANAYAKE, Appellant, and JAYASINGHE (Police Sergeant,
Ambalangoda), Respondent

S. C. 680-M. C. Balapitiya, 61,045

Penal Code-Criminal intimidation-Conditional 'threat-Offence committed-Section 483.

The offence of criminal intimidation can be committed even where the-threat of injury is a conditional one.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Magistrate, Balapitiya.

M. M. Kumarakulasingham, for accused appellant.

A. C. Alles, Crown Counsel, for the Attorney-General.

Cur. adv. vult.

July 27, 1948. BASNAYAKE J.-

The accused-appellant (hereinafter referred to as the appellant) has been convicted of the offence of criminal intimidation punishable under section 486 of the Penal Code and sentenced to a term of six months' rigorous imprisonment. Learned counsel for the appellant contends that the facts proved against him do not establish the offence of which he has been convicted. It appears that on the date of the offence there

was a case regarding some land pending between one Warawita and the appellant in the court of Balapitiya. As Warawita passed the appellant at a place somewhere outside the precincts of the court-house the appellant dug Warawita in the stomach with his first saying: " You come to enjoy the land I will draw your entrails out and hang them round your neck." Warawita says he was alarmed by the appellant's behaviour and com­plained to the court sergeant. Warawita's brother, who was with him, supports him as regards the incident but differs as to the actual words used by the appellant. According to him the accused said: " If you enter the land your entrails will be drawn out."

Learned counsel submits that a conditional threat such as that uttered by the appellant does not come within the ambit of section 483 of the . Penal Code. I am unable to uphold learned counsel's submission. "Whether the threat be of immediate or deferred injury, if the ingredients of the offence as described in that section are established, the offender would be guilty of criminal intimidation. The offence of criminal inti­midation is committed by anyone who threatens another with any injury to his person, reputation, or property, or to the person or reputation of any one in whom that person is interested, with intent to cause alarm to that person, or to cause that person to do any act which he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do any act which that person is legally entitled to do, as the means of avoiding the execution of such threat 1[Section 483, Penal Gode.].

A conditional threat of injury or a threat of future injury is not excluded from the description of the offence. A threat is a declaration of an intention to punish or hurt and to threaten is to give warning of the infliction of injury or to announce one's intention to inflict an injury as punishment or in revenge. Lord Trevethin's definition 2[Rex v. Wyatt (1921) 91 L. J. K. B. 402.] of the word " threaten " in section 31 of the Larceny Act, 1916, though not exactly applicable to this context is not irrelevant to the present discussion. He says " threaten '' means to " ex

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