Severity of injury not enough to prove attempt to murder: HC

The Calcutta High Court has ruled that the gravity of an injury, however severe, cannot by itself justify a conviction for attempt to murder unless the prosecution proves that the act was committed with the intention or knowledge to cause death - the essential ingredients under Section 307 of the IPC.

- SOUMYADIP MULLICK

Justice Chaitali Chatterjee Das made this observation while modifying a 2015 conviction by a Ranaghat court that had sentenced three men - Debdas Basak alias Deba Basak and two others - to five years' rigorous imprisonment for allegedly attempting to murder a man at Shantipur in Nadia district in 2004.

"The Court has to see whether the act, irrespective of its result, was done with such intention or knowledge as contemplated under Section 307 of the IPC," Justice Das observed, holding that the presence of grievous injury alone could not establish intent to kill.