Organised Crime under BNS and MCOCA: Common Core, Different Reach

 The easiest way to remember organised crime under BNS and MCOCA is this: both laws do not punish a single stray offence; they target a continuing criminal enterprise connected with a syndicate. In both, the prosecution must show repeated serious unlawful activity, nexus with an organised crime syndicate, prior charge-sheets within ten years, and use of unlawful means for unlawful gain or advantage.

 BNS has largely borrowed the structural idea from MCOCA, but BNS makes it part of the general penal law and gives a broader illustrative list of organised crimes. MCOCA remains a special, stricter State law model, while BNS is wider in catalogue and also separately recognizes petty organised crime under Section 112.

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Organised Crime after the BNS: Expansion, Ambiguity and the Lessons of MCOCA

 The concept of organised crime in Indian criminal law now stands at an important transition point: MCOCA supplied a narrowly structured special-law model, while Section 111 of the BNS imports that model into the general penal code and simultaneously expands its textual reach. This shift is significant, because a framework designed for exceptional, syndicate-based criminality now risks becoming a broadly deployable prosecutorial tool unless courts insist on strict statutory discipline and precise evidentiary thresholds.

I. The shared architecture: continuity, syndicate, coercive means, unlawful gain

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Judging with Sensitivity, Deciding with Precision: Appreciation of Evidence in POCSO Trials

The success of a POCSO trial often depends not merely on what evidence is produced, but on how that evidence is appreciated. In cases of child sexual abuse, the courtroom must remain a place of legal discipline, yet the judicial process must also respond to the realities of childhood, trauma, delayed disclosure, and the absence of conventional forms of corroboration.​

For the legal fraternity, this branch of adjudication presents a delicate responsibility. The court must protect the child from the injustice of disbelief rooted in misunderstanding, while equally safeguarding the accused from conviction unsupported by legally acceptable proof.

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Bombay HC: Under which circumstances, disclosure made by the child victim though hearsay is admissible as per S 6 of the Indian Evidence Act?

14. The evidence of PW 2 and PW 7 as regards the disclosure made by the child victim though hearsay is admissible in view of the provisions of section 6 of the Indian Evidence Act which recognizes and embodies the rule of res gestae, which is explained by the Hon'ble Apex Court in Gentela Vijayvardhan Rao v. State of Andhra Pradesh reported in MANU/SC/0719/1996 : AIR 1996 SC 2791 thus:

"15. The principle of law embodied in Section 6 of the Evidence Act is usually known as the rule of res gestae recognised in English law. The essence of the doctrine is that a fact which, though not in issue, is so connected with the fact in issue "as to form part of the same transaction" speaking, in exception to the general rule that hearsay evidence is not admissible. The rationale in making certain statement or fact admissible under Section 6 of the Evidence Act is on account of the spontaneity and immediacy of such statement or fact in relation to the fact in issue. But it is necessary that such fact or statement must be a part of the same transaction. In other words, such statement must have been made contemporaneous with the acts which constitute the offence or at least immediately thereafter. But if there was an interval, however slight it may be, which was sufficient enough for fabrication then the statement is not part of res gestae ............... "

Section 6 is an exception to the rule of evidence that hearsay evidence is not admissible. The statement must relate to the fact in issue or relevant thereto and must be substantially contemporaneous with the fact. Such statement though not evidence of the truth of the matters stated are of corroborative value. In Sukhar ..vs.. State of Uttar Pradesh reported in MANU/SC/0626/1999 : (1999) 9 SCC 507 the Hon'ble Apex Court observes that section 6 is an exception to the general rule of inadmissibility of hearsay evidence provided such evidence is almost contemporaneous with the fact/s excluding the possibility of fabrication. The essence of the doctrine is that a fact which, though not in issue, is so connected with the fact in issue, as to the form part of the same transaction, that it becomes relevant by itself.

The evidence of PW 2 - Pushpa and PW 7 - Priya that the child victim narrated the incident to them is therefore admissible in view of the provisions of section 6 of the Indian Evidence Act.

 IN THE HIGH COURT OF BOMBAY (NAGPUR BENCH)

Criminal Appeal 316 of 2018

Decided On: 01.07.2019

Manish Vs. The State of Maharashtra

Hon'ble Judges/Coram:

R.B. Deo, J.

Citation: 2019 SCC ONLINE BOM 1154, MANU/MH/1619/2019

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