ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the nature and extent of the provision made in Macaulay's draft Code and in the enacted Indian Penal Code (IPC) with respect to the conduct element of offences. The IPC should contain a comprehensive, general provision for the conduct/physical element of offences. Conventionally, the basic predicate for criminal liability can take one of three forms such as an act or series of acts; an omission; some form of association with a state of affairs. It considers what the content of omissions liability should be and what failures to act are appropriately penalised in a modern liberal democracy. The formulation for an illegal omission in the IPC is of long standing and doubtless well integrated into the working practices and expectations of prosecutors and criminal lawyers generally. A modern criminal code must include some liability based on omission although, as alluded to already, the proper extent of liability based on omission is contentious.
