Section 27

The Indian Penal Code often uses the idea of 'possession' to decide guilt for offences like theft, criminal breach of trust, or receiving stolen property. In real life, people frequently keep their belongings with family members, clerks, or servants rather than always carrying everything themselves. Section 27 makes sure that using such an intermediary does not let someone dodge legal responsibility or protection just because someone else was technically holding the item. It extends the legal fiction of 'possession' to cover these everyday, dependent relationships.

Indian courts have generally read Section 27 as codifying a common-sense rule: possession through an agent, servant, or dependent family member is still possession by the principal, so long as the item is held 'on account of' that person. Courts have used this to attribute possession to employers or household heads in cases involving stolen property, unlicensed goods, or contraband found with a servant or spouse, provided the prosecution shows the goods were being held for the employer's or husband's benefit and not independently by the wife/clerk/servant themselves.

• Myth: If a servant or clerk is caught holding stolen or illegal property, only the servant is legally responsible.
  Fact: Courts have held that if the servant or clerk was holding the property on behalf of their employer, the law treats the employer as being in possession too, so responsibility can extend to the employer.
• Myth: This section applies to any object a spouse or employee happens to touch or carry.
  Fact: It only applies when the wife, clerk, or servant holds the property 'on account of' the other person — meaning as their agent or on their behalf, not when holding something as their own independent property.