Penal Code · Updated to 4 Jul 2023 · Chapter XXII · Criminal Intimidation, Insult and Annoyance
503. Criminal intimidation
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Criminal intimidation is threatening harm to someone's body, reputation or property, or to someone they care about. The aim is to alarm them, or make them do what they need not do or skip what they may lawfully do. A threat to the reputation of a dead person they care about also counts.
Summary · Drafted with AI, checked against the official text on 30 Sep 2026.
Whoever threatens another with any injury to his person, reputation or property, or to the person or reputation of any one in whom that person is interested, with intent to cause alarm to that person, or to cause that person to do any act which he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do any act which that person is legally entitled to do, as the means of avoiding the execution of such threat, commits criminal intimidation.
Explanation—A threat to injure the reputation of any deceased person in whom the person threatened is interested, is within this section.
A, for the purpose of inducing B to desist from prosecuting a civil suit, threatens to burn B’s house. A is guilty of criminal intimidation.