What are the essentials of an attempt to murder under Section 307? Or State the law relating to an attempt to commit murder.

Question: What are the essentials of an attempt to murder under Section 307?

Or

State the law relating to an attempt to commit murder.

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Answer

Section 307 deals with the law relating to Attempt to murder.— Whoever does any act with such intention or knowledge, and under such circumstances that, if he by that act caused death, he would be guilty of murder, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine; and if hurt is caused to any person by such act, the offender shall be liable either to imprisonment for life or to such punishment as is hereinbefore mentioned.

Attempts by life convicts.— When any person offending under this section is under sentence of imprisonment for life, he may, if hurt is caused, be punished with death.

Section 307 deals with the offence of an attempt to commit murder. In order to constitute an offence under this section, two elements are essential.

• First, the intention or knowledge to commit murder.
• Secondly, the actual act of trying to commit the murder.

Thus, it must have both the necessary mens rea and actus reus. In other words, for offences under this section, all the elements of murder exist, except for the fact that death has not occurred. However, an attempt, in order to be criminal, need not be the penultimate act foreboding death.

It is sufficient if there is present an intention to commit homicide coupled with some overt act in execution thereof. Such an overt act would have accomplished the intended crime had there been no extraneous and unanticipated intervention that frustrated its consummation.

To sustain a conviction under this section, it is necessary to establish that had the accused succeeded in his attempt and the victim met with his death, then the offence committed would have been one punishable under Section 302.

In a case, State of Maharashtra v. Bodya Ramji Patil (1978) Cr LJ 411(Bom) the victim had received injuries, which were described by the doctor as dangerous and were likely to cause death. The doctor did not state that the injury was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, which alone would bring it within the purview of section 300. In view of this, the high court held that an offence under section 307, was ruled out.

In Jai Narain Mishra v. State of Bihar [AIR 1972 SC 1764], the accused was responsible for causing injury on the head of the victim with a farsa. The injury was described as a simple injury. Though the weapon used by the offender was one which was likely to cause death, the Supreme Court held that the accused could not be held guilty under Section 307. Instead, his conviction was changed to one under Section 327.

Thus, even if an act was done with the intention to commit murder, but if the act was not capable of causing death, the offence will not fall under this section. However, it may be punishable under Section 300 read with Section 511. However, an accused charged under Section 307 cannot be acquitted merely because the injuries inflicted on the victim were in the nature of simple hurt.

The determinative factor is intention or knowledge and not the nature of the injury. Nevertheless, the nature of injury actually caused render considerable assistance to the court in finding the intention of the accused. However, it can ascertain intention from other circumstances, even without reference to actual wounds. It is not necessary for the applicability of the section that any injury should have been caused to the person on whom the attempt to murder was made.

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