Unlawful Assembly

Unlawful assembly, an assembly of five or more persons is designated an 'unlawful assembly', if the common object of the persons composing that assembly is:

First.-To overawe by criminal force, or show of criminal force, the Central or any State Govern-ment or Parliament or the Legislature of any State, or any public servant in the exercise of the lawful power of such public servant; or

Second.-To resist the execution of any law, or of any legal process; or

Third.-To commit any mischief of criminal trespass, or other offence; or

Fourth.-By means of criminal force, or show of criminal force, to any person to take or obtain possession of any property, or to deprive any person of the enjoyment of a right of way, or of the use of water or other incorporeal right of which he is in possession or enjoyment, or to enforce any right of supposed right; or

Fifth.-By means of criminal force, or show of criminal force, to compel any person to do what he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do what he is legally entitled to do.

Explanation.-An assembly which was not unlawful when it assembled, may subsequently become an unlawful assembly. (Penal Code, 1860, s. 141)

At Common Law is an assembly of three or more persons (a) for purposes forbidden by law, such as that of committing a crime by open force, or (b) with intent to carry out any common purpose, lawful or unlawful, in such a manner as to endanger the public peace, or to give firm and courageous persons in the neighbourhood of such assembly reasonable grounds to apprehend a breach of the peace in consequence of it. See Stephen's Digest of Criminal Law, 6th Edn., p. 55,

and compare RIOT; ROUT; PUBLIC MEETING; PUBLIC ORDER.