Cheating by overseas communications can attract Indian penal liability when deception and delivery occur in India.

A foreigner outside India could still be punished under the Indian Penal Code for cheating where the deceptive communications were received in India and induced delivery of property in India. The Court treated the locality of the offence as India because the essential ingredients of deceit and inducement were completed there, and held that Section 2 applied without any limitation based on nationality or physical presence. The objection that trial provisions could restrict substantive penal liability was rejected, and conviction was upheld notwithstanding absence from India when the representations were made.

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Issues: Whether a foreigner, not corporeally present in India when the representations were made, could be convicted under the Indian Penal Code for cheating where the deceptive communications were received in India and the property was delivered in India.

Analysis: The offence of cheating consists of deceitful representation and the consequent inducement to deliver property. On the facts found, the accused, though outside India, made representations by letters, telegrams and telephone communications which reached the complainant in India and induced delivery of money in India. The Court held that the locality of the offence was in India because all essential ingredients of the offence occurred within India. Section 2 of the Indian Penal Code was read as applying to every person guilty within India, without limitation based on nationality or physical presence. The contention that a foreigner outside India could not be punished under the Code was rejected, and the Court also held that the place of trial under the Code of Criminal Procedure did not limit substantive liability under the Penal Code.

Conclusion: The accused was liable to conviction under the Indian Penal Code notwithstanding his absence from India at the time of commission of the offence, and the jurisdictional objection failed.

Ratio Decidendi: A person who, though physically outside India, commits the essential ingredients of an offence within India through communications received and acted upon in India is punishable under Section 2 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and may be tried in India on the basis of the locality of the offence.

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