The ingredients, and the line against lawful demand
Three elements: a threat of injury, fear induced in the victim, and delivery of property or valuable security because of that fear. Injury includes harm to body, mind, reputation or property, so a threat to expose or defame can qualify.
The defence line is usually that the demand was for a lawful debt. Pressing for repayment of money genuinely owed is not extortion; threatening harm or exposure to secure it can be. Recovery agents and informal lenders regularly find themselves on the wrong side of that distinction.
Where these cases come from in Chennai
The pattern of extortion complaints has shifted noticeably toward online conduct.
Defending a false extortion allegation
These allegations are easy to make and damaging on registration alone. The defence is built on the paper trail: the underlying debt or entitlement, the complete message history rather than the extracts produced, the timing of the complaint relative to other proceedings, and any pattern of counter-complaints.
Where the FIR does not disclose the ingredients (no threat, or no delivery caused by it), a quash petition alongside anticipatory bail is often the right sequence.