India, May 23 -- The Rajasthan High Court on Wednesday ruled that an offence cannot be classified as "organised crime" merely on the ground that more than one accused person was involved, holding that the objective of Section 111 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita , 2023, is not to reclassify ordinary offences as organised crimes but to take action against criminal gangs that are premeditated, continuous, and structured in nature. Justice Farjand Ali, in a verdict that is among the first to comprehensively define the contours of organised crime under the new penal code, warned that mechanical invocation of Section 111 would systematically expose persons accused of ordinary financial offences to the disproportionate penal consequences and reputational devastation of an organised crime prosecution. "The mere circumstance that more than one individual participates in the commission of an offence, therefore, does not ipso facto attract the exceptional regime contemplated under Section 111 of the BNS," the bench observed. "The provision under consideration is not intended to operate as a mere enlarged substitute for conventional principles of joint criminal liability already embedded within the penal framework. Rather, it has been enacted to combat a qualitatively distinct category of criminality, namely, structured, continuous, and organised criminal enterprises operating with a degree of systemic coordination, continuity, and pecuniary motivation transcending isolated or episodic offences," the bench added. The bench laid down a structured framework of essential ingredients that must be prima facie disclosed before charges can be framed under Section 111. These include the existence of an organised crime syndicate - a structured group with organisational coherence beyond casual association; continuing unlawful activity demonstrated through more than one charge sheets filed within the preceding 10 years with courts having taken cognisance; deployment of violence, threat, intimidation or coercion and so on. The bench further held that membership in an organised crime syndicate is not established merely by prior criminal antecedents....