Continuing offence - Indian Laws - General

Term Continuing offence According to Black s Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition (Special Deluxe), Continuing means enduring; not terminated by a single act or fact; subsisting for a definite period or intended to cover or apply to successive similar obligations or occurrences. Continuing offence means type of crime which is committed over a span of time. As to period of statute of limitations in a continuing offence, the last act of the offence controls the commencement of the period. A continuing offence, such that only the last act thereof within the period of the statute of limitations need be alleged in the indictment or information is one which may consist of separate acts or a course of conduct but which arises from that singleness of thought, purpose or action which may be deemed a single impulse. So also, a continuous crime means one consisting of a continuous series of acts, which endures after the period of consummation, as the offence of carrying concealed weapons. In the case of instantaneous crimes, the statute of limitation begins to run with the consummation while, in the case of continuous crimes, it only begins with the cessation of the criminal conduct or act. Reference - GOKAK PATEL VOLKART LTD. VERSUS DUNDAYYA GURUSHIDDAIAH HIREMATH- 1991 (2) TMI 330 - SUPREME COURT