Cheaters: What is Cheating and Its Punishments

To start with the essay cheaters here will be discussed the definition of this concept, its forms and punishments. Cheating is when a defendant deceives another person into believing something and thereby persuading them to act to their detriment in some way. This involves some form of deception by the defendant and inducement on the victim. 

As it is stated in Section 415 of the Penal Code: deceiving any person, whether or not such deception was the sole or main inducement. The deception including Fraudulently or dishonestly induces the person so deceived to deliver any property to any person, or to consent that any person shall retain any property or Intentionally induces the person so deceived to do or omit to do anything which he would not do or omit to do if he were not so deceived and which act or omission causes or is likely to cause damage or harm to any person in body, mind, reputation, or property .

The punishment for cheating are including for simple cheating is imprisonment for maximum up to 5 years or fine or both. For cheating by personationor pretending to be some other person isImprisonment for maximum up to 7 years or fine or both. For cheating with knowledge that wrongful loss may be caused to a victim when defendant is bound by law or contract to protect victim’s interest Imprisonment for maximum up to 7 years or fine or both. And for cheating and dishonestly inducing victim to deliver property or to make, alter, or destroy a valuable security are Imprisonment for minimum 1 year and maximum 10 years and with whipping and fine. 

The actus reus of cheating are including , defendant’s conduct of deceiving,the deception induces the victim to either,to deliver property , consent to any person to the retention of the property and to act or comit to do anything which causes or is likely to cause damage or harm to any person. 'Deception’ here means inducing a person to believe something which the person making the representation knows is not true as we could refer to the case of Swami Dhirendra Brahamchari v Shailendar Bhushan. The deception by the defendant must induce the victim in either of Induce the victim to deliver property to another person Induce the victim to give consent to any person to the retention of the property by another person Induce the victim to act or omit to do anything which causes or is likely to cause damage or harm to any person in body, mind , reputation,property . The Mens rea are including defendant is dishonest as to the delivery of the property or consent to the retention of the property or defendant is fraudulent as to the delivery of the property or consent to the retention of the property.and defendant intentionally induces the victim to act or omit to do anything.

What amounts to ‘dishonest’ in s.24 Penal Code: Whoever does anything with the intention of causing wrongful gain to one person, or wrongful loss to another person, irrespective of whether the act causes actual wrongful loss or gain, is said to do that thing “dishonestly”. Section 23 of the Penal Code states that “Wrongful gain” is gain by unlawful means of property to which the person gaining is not legally entitled. “Wrongful loss” is the loss by unlawful means of property to which the person losing it is legally entitle.

Section 25 of the Penal Code states that a person is said to do a thing fraudulently if he does that thing with intent to defraud, but not otherwise. That means, there must be ‘intention’ to defraud. Intention here is where it is D’s purpose to achieve the result or the knowledge that a result was absolutely certain to occur in the ordinary course of events. ‘Defraud’ means to use deceit, falsehood or trickery to obtain property or rights belonging to another. Intention here is where it is the defendant's purpose to achieve the result as we can see at or the knowledge that a result was absolutely certain to occur in the ordinary course of events.

To conlude, as cheating may sound pity and small matter, it is a very serious offence since it would lead to wrong term of agreement and it would likely be a loss for the claimant. This offence should be taken seriously as it would affect peoples life.