A issued a warrant to a police officer to arrest P. But the officer arrests Q after the due inquiry believing Q to be P. Here

Question

“There is no gainsaying that an able bodied youthful Jawan when physically assaulted by his superior may be in a state of provocation. The gravity of such a provocation may be heightened if the physical beating was meant to force him to submit to unnatural carnal intercourse to satisfy the superior’s lust. The store room incident involving the appellant and the deceased is alleged to have taken place when the deceased had bolted the door of the store room to keep out any intruder from seeing what was happening inside. By any standard the act of a superior to humiliate and force his subordinate in a closed room to succumb to the lustful design of the former was a potent recipe for anyone placed in the appellant’s position to revolt and retaliate against the treatment being given to him. What may have happened inside the store room if the appellant had indeed revolted and retaliated against the unbecoming conduct of the deceased is a matter of conjecture. The appellant or any one in his position may have retaliated violently to the grave peril of his tormentor. The fact of the matter, however, is that the appellant appears to have borne the assault without any retaliation against the deceased-superior and somehow managed to escape from the room…All that the evidence proves is that after the said incident
the appellant was seen crying and depressed and when asked by his colleagues, he is said to have narrated his tale of humiliation at the hands of the deceased…. That appears to have happened in the present case also for the appellant’s version is that he and his colleagues had planned to avenge the humiliation by beating up the deceased in the evening when they all assemble near the water heating point. That apart, the appellant attended to his normal duty during the day time and after the evening dinner, went to perform his guard duty at 2100 hrs.”
[Extracted from B.D Khunte v. Union of India, Criminal Appeal No. 2328 of 2014, para 12-13].

Answer 1

The key to this question is separating the person who acted (the officer) from the person merely named in the warrant (P).

Criminal negligence and wrongful confinement: Both require some act by the accused. P performed no act in this scenario; he is simply the individual the warrant was meant to target, so neither charge can attach to him.
Section 76 IPC: This defence excuses the officer, who acted under a genuine mistake of fact while executing the warrant, it says nothing about P and is not the reason P has committed no offence.
None of these: Since none of the three specific descriptions correctly capture P's position, the residual option is the accurate one.

As P took no action of any kind, the correct answer is None of these.

Answer 2

It helps to first ask which of these characterisations would correctly apply, and to whom, before checking whether they apply to P.

If anyone deserves the Section 76 protection, it is the officer, who carried out an arrest under a warrant after due inquiry and in the honest but mistaken belief that Q was P. That protection is personal to the officer's own conduct in executing the warrant.
If anyone could theoretically face a claim of wrongful confinement, it would again be the officer (though here it is excused by Section 76), since he is the one who physically restrained Q's movement, not P.
Criminal negligence would require someone to have acted carelessly, again pointing to the officer's inquiry process, not to P, who never acted at all.
Testing this against P: None of these three descriptions were ever about P to begin with, they each describe the officer's position. P, having done nothing, cannot be slotted into any of them.

Once the roles are properly separated, none of the offered characterisations correctly describes P's own legal position.

Therefore, the correct answer is None of these.

Answer 3

It helps to first ask which of these characterisations would correctly apply, and to whom, before checking whether they apply to P.

If anyone deserves the Section 76 protection, it is the officer, who carried out an arrest under a warrant after due inquiry and in the honest but mistaken belief that Q was P. That protection is personal to the officer's own conduct in executing the warrant.
If anyone could theoretically face a claim of wrongful confinement, it would again be the officer (though here it is excused by Section 76), since he is the one who physically restrained Q's movement, not P.
Criminal negligence would require someone to have acted carelessly, again pointing to the officer's inquiry process, not to P, who never acted at all.
Testing this against P: None of these three descriptions were ever about P to begin with, they each describe the officer's position. P, having done nothing, cannot be slotted into any of them.

Once the roles are properly separated, none of the offered characterisations correctly describes P's own legal position.

Therefore, the correct answer is None of these.

A issued a warrant to a police officer to arrest P. But the officer arrests Q after the due inquiry believing Q to be P. Here

Show Hint

The Correct Option is D

Approach Solution - 1

Approach Solution -2

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