Reconstructing the Jurisprudence of Causing Financial Loss to the State: Towards a Coherent Theory of Criminal Responsibility under Section 179A

Every prosecution under section 179A begins, or ought to begin, with the identification of the legal duty that the accused is said to have breached, because in an offence of this structure the duty is what converts an ordinary commercial misjudgment into a matter of criminal concern. The point is easily obscured by the way charges are conventionally framed, since the particulars usually open with the transaction rather than with the offence, and the office is treated as a jurisdictional fact establishing that the accused falls within the class of persons capable of committing the offence.