PROJECT SUBMISSION

Law of Crimes I: Penal code

Oblique Intent

Submitted by:
Utkarsh Mishra
Class: BBA LLB Division: A
PRN: 17010224079

of Symbiosis Law School, NOIDA

Symbiosis International (Deemed University),

On
21st January 2018
Under the Guidance of
Ms. Meera Mathew

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 CERTIFICATE

The project entitled “Oblique Intent” submitted to the Symbiosis Law School, Noida
for Law of Crimes I: penal code as part of Internal assessment is based on my original
work carried out under the guidance of Dr. C.J. Rawandale and Ms. Meera Mathew from
December, 2018 to 28th January, 2019. The research work has not been submitted
elsewhere for award of any degree.

The material borrowed from other sources and incorporated in the thesis has been duly
acknowledged.

I understand that I myself could be held responsible and accountable for plagiarism, if
any, detected later on.

Utkarsh Mishra

21 January, 2019

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

With my deepest appreciation, I would like to thank Professor C. J. Rawandale and

Assistant Professor Meera Mathew for providing me with the opportunity to do this
research project on ‘Oblique Intent’and for their consistent guidance and support.

Without their consistent motivation and assistance, it would not have been possible to
make this project.
Moreover, I would also like to express my sincere gratitude towards Symbiosis Law
School, Noida for providing me a congenial learning environment to do my project.
Furthermore, I would like to thank the library staff for helping me in completing this
project successfully by helping me finding the necessary books and resources and finally,
I would like to thank my parents whose constant prayers and guidance has always been
the biggest motivating source in my life.

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 INDEX
Content Page Number
Introduction 5

Evolution 5
Oblique Intention: Meaning
6

Literature Review 7

Conclusion and Suggestions 10

Bibliography 11

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INTRODUCTION
Most legal systems accept that there are two ways in which an individual can become
involved in criminal wrongdoing. This reflects gradations of moral responsibility
between those who act and those who facilitate or otherwise support the acts of others. 1
Under the criminal law you can intend a result which is not your aim or purpose. This is
more problematic in terms of both definition and principle. Indirect or oblique intention is
wider than direct intent. Foresight or knowledge is fundamental to this type of intention
as, indeed, it is to recklessness, but there is a vital distinction between the two as we shall
see below.

A result may not be desired, nor be your aim or purpose, but will be obliquely intended if
it is a) a virtually certain result and b) foreseen by you as a virtual certainty.
Indirect/oblique intent will apply to results caused when D acts with some other purpose
in mind. An obliquely intended result is therefore a spin-off or side-effect of D’s main
purpose. This means that one can indirectly intend a result which is either a pre-requisite
to the achievement of the desired primary purpose or a virtually certain consequence of
such purpose.

EVOLUTION
Oblique intention is opposite to specific intention. It can be said to exist or be capable of
existing when the accused sees the consequences as certain or virtually certain as a result
of his actions and, although he does not positively desire it, he goes ahead with his
actions anyway. It can be termed as ulterior intention. This principle, by itself would
amount to a definition of the mens rea of many crimes, but it does not meet all cases. This
is broader than direct or specific intention and includes the foreseeable and inescapable
consequences of achieving a desired result, even if the consequence itself is not desired.
Oblique intention is a problem area as it is a broader concept and it differs from the
ordinary meaning of intention. It may help to think about the reason that the court
1
John Gardner, ‘Complicity and causality’ (2007) 1(2) Criminal Law and Philosophy 127.

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expanded the definition of intention to widen the net to catch more defendants,
particularly in relation to murder. As murder has no alternative mens rea of recklessness,
defendants cannot be liable unless they fall within the scope of intention. If this is limited
to direct intention, a defendant would only be liable if his purpose was to cause death; a
defendant who caused death in chase of some other end would not be liable for murder
even if achieving his primary purpose rendered death foreseeable. A crime is frequently
so defined that the mens rea includes an intention to produce some further consequence
beyond the actus reus of the crime in question. Burglary will serve as an example. It is
not enough that D intended to enter a building as a trespasser, that is, to achieve the actus
reus of burglary. It is necessary to go further and to show that D had the intention of
commission one of a number of specified offences in the building. The actual
commission of one of those offences is no part of the actus reus of burglary which is
complete as soon as D enters. A bomber kills a particular person whom he wants to kill
by exploding a bomb in a plane although some other passengers are also killed because of
the explosion. In this case, the bomber neither desired nor wanted to kill the other
passengers although he knows the consequences of the explosion.

Oblique Intent: Meaning

The mensrea of murder is either an intention to kill2 or an intention to cause grievous

bodily harm3,4,5, and intention in English law. In Moloney,; Lord Bridge was clear that,
for the defendant to have the mens rea of murder, there must be something more than
mere foresight or knowledge that death or serious injury is a "natural" consequence of the
current activities: there must be clear evidence of an intention. This intention is proved
not only when the defendant's motive or purpose is to kill or cause grievous bodily harm,
but when death or grievous bodily harm is virtually certain occur and the defendant
foresees death or grievous bodily harm as the virtually certain consequence of his act.
Also note that, in Maloney, Lord Bridge held that the mens rea of murder need not be
aimed at a specific person so, if a terrorist plants a bomb in a public place, it is irrelevant
that no specific individual is targeted so long as one or more deaths is virtually certain.
2
R v. Woolin (1999) AC 82;
3
R v. Moloney 2 (1985) 1 AER 1025.
4
R v. Hancock &Shankland (1986) 1 AC 455,
5
R v. Woolin Supra note 2.

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Further, it is irrelevant that the terrorist might claim justification for the act through a
political agenda. How or why a person kills could only have relevance in the sentencing
phase of a trial.

Literature Review

 Oblique Intention Distinguished from Recklessness: Foresight of a Virtual

Certainty v Foresight of Risk6
Recklessness refers to the conscious taking of an unreasonable or unjustified risk
of harm. If an undesired harmful consequence is less than virtually certain to
occur, it could be expressed as being a highly probable, possible or likely risk. If
this risk is foreseen by defendant who carries on regardless then he will be
subjectively reckless. For example: if I kick a ball moderately (as opposed to
very) hard towards a small target to the side of a large window I may see that
there is some risk of breaking the window but it is not virtually certain or
inevitable. If the window breaks, I would be reckless. Therefore, a result which is
not foreseen as virtually certain but as a lower degree of risk will be recklessly
caused but not intended. You might have already gathered that the concept of
intention is an elastic one. At one end of the spectrum is R v Steane7 where
intention was defined narrowly so as to coincide with motive. At the other is the
next case, Hyam v DPP8, where intention appeared to include a state of mind
which we would today call recklessness. This was the first time oblique intention
had been considered by such a high-level court and although it has been implicitly
overruled by Moloney’s case9 below it remains a good illustration of the
difference between foresight of a probability (which would today be considered
recklessness) and foresight of a virtual certainty (oblique intention).
Hyam v DPP10

6
Itzhak Kugler, “The definition of Oblique Intention” (SAGE, The Journal of Criminal Law, 2004)
7
[1947] KB 997
8
[1975] AC 55 House of Lords, p.86
9
[1985] 1 All ER 1025
10
[1975] AC 55 House of Lords

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 In this case, it was held that a person has the Mens Rea of murder if he knows
that it is highly probable that he will cause death or grievous bodily hurt. Mrs.
Hyam, a jilted lover, had poured petrol through the letterbox of a house occupied
by her rival and ignited it. In the ensuing fi re two children were killed. Mrs Hyam
claimed that she only intended to frighten her rival although she foresaw that
death or grievous bodily harm was highly probable. The trial judge directed the
jury that if they were satisfied that death or GBH were objectively highly
probable the prosecution ‘ If you are satisfied that he must as a reasonable man
have contemplated that the grievous bodily harm was a likely result . . . and that
such harm did happen and that the office died as a consequence then the accused
is guilty of capital murder.’ Intention had established the necessary intention of
the murder. It was not necessary to prove that Mrs Hyam had either wanted or
intended that result. This direction involved two assumptions:
1. That foresight was the same as intention as opposed to being evidence of
intention;
2. That the degree of risk required for a finding of intention was foresight of a
high probability.
Lord Diplock said in the House of Lords judgment at p 86: ‘I agree with those of
your Lordships who take the uncomplicated view that in crimes of this class no
distinction is to be drawn in English law between the state of mind of one who
does an act because he desires it to produce a particular evil consequence, and the
state of mind of one who does the act knowing full well that it is likely to produce
that consequence although it may not be the object he was seeking to achieve by
doing the act. What is common to both these states of mind is willingness to
produce the particular evil consequence: and this, in my view, is the mens rea
needed to satisfy a requirement . . . [the accused] . . . must have acted with
‘intent’. . . or . . . with malice aforethought.’
R v Moloney11
House of Lords Moloney was on leave from the army and had shot his stepfather
at close range during a drunken argument over which of them could load and fi re

11
[1985] 1 All ER 1025

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 a shot gun in the shortest time. Moloney had been the first to load the gun and in
response to his stepfather’s statement, ‘I didn’t think you’d got the guts, but if you
have, pull the trigger,’ Moloney fired the gun and killed his stepfather. He
claimed that he had not aimed the gun at his father and denied an intent to kill.
The trial judge directed the jury that Moloney would be guilty of murder if he
intended to kill or cause serious injury. On the meaning of intention, he said that:
‘a man intends the consequences of his voluntary act
(a) when he desires it to happen, whether or not he foresees that it probably will
happen and
(b) when he foresees that it will probably happen whether he desires it will not.’

The Concept of Intention (Direct/Oblique) in the Indian Penal Code 12

The Indian Penal Code may be described as Criminal Law of England free from all
technicalities and superfluities, systematically arranged and modified in some few
particulars to suit the circumstances of British India.13 According to Mr. M.C. Setalvad,
"Basic English notions underlie most of the crimes defined in the code but also that these
basic notions have been simplified and modified with care to adapt them to Indian
conditions.14"Most of the crimes under the Indian Penal Code are constituted with an
element of guilty intention. The Indian Penal Code by large bears out the truth of the
observations by Stephen, J. in the Queen v. Tolsoii15 "The full definition of every crime
contains expressly or by implication a proposition as to a state of mind." And if in some
cases it is omitted, the omission should be considered intentional; e.g. guilty intention is
not necessary for the offence of waging war against the Government of India16 ,
sedition17, kidnapping18 and bigamy19. It may be because the framers of the Code might
have considered the above-mentioned offences as so harmful to the state and society that

12
R. Nathan, Moralising Section 300(c) of the Singapore and Indian Penal Code: a Conceptual
Analysis( Indian Law Institute, 2010)
13
Quoted by L.V. Ganatra and V.B. Ganatra in article Is Crime-Actus Reus +Mens Rea. 1973 Guj. L.R.
Vol XIV p. 43,
14
M.C.Setalvad, The Common Law of India, p. 139.
15
(1889) 23 QBD 168
16
Section 121, The Indian Penal Code, 1860.
17
Section 124A, The Indian Penal Code, 1860
18
Section 363, The Indian Penal Code, 1860.
19
Section 494, The Indian Penal Code, 1860.

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they felt it just and expedient to define them without bringing any word to give effect to
the doctrine of mens rea in the definition of these offences. Some acts themselves are of
such a character that they raise a violent presumption that whoever willed the act must
have intended the consequences, for example, counterfeiting of coins20. The word mens
rea has nowhere been used in that Indian Penal Code but it has been applied in two
different ways:

(i) The chapter of " General Exceptions" which controls all the offences not only defined
in the Indian Penal Code but also those described and punished under special and local
laws, deals with general conditions which indicates the circumstances where absence of
criminal intent may be presumed. This shows that the Indian Penal Code negatively gives
effect to the doctrine of mens rea.

(ii) Every offence in the Indian Penal Code is carefully defined so as to include the
precise evil intent which is the essence of a particular crime.

Conclusion and Suggestions

Mental element plays a pivotal role in criminal attempt. The gravity of every attempt to
commit offence takes a brutal shape when it coupled with mental element. Penal policy
of every jurisdiction based on this particular aspect. The main objective of the penal law
is to punish a person with mind. It does not desire to put behind bars an innocent person
who may have had the hard luck of being involved in an accident and event, which he did
not have the intent of participating in. So, the element of mens rea as an indispensable
ingredient of an offence is also approved by growing modern philosophy and penology.
Every jurisdiction had accepted it as an essential element of an offence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

20
Section 232, The Indian Penal Code, 1860.

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1. K.I. Vibhute, P.S.A. Pillai’s Criminal Law, (12th edn. 2015), Lexis Nexis
Butterworths, New Delhi.
2. K.T.Thomas and M.A.Rashid (ed.,) The Indian Penal Code (34th Ed.
Lexis Nexis Butterworths, New Delhi, 2014).
3. C.K. Thakker (Rev.), Ratan Lal & Dhiraj Lal’s Indian Penal Code, (32′d
ed., 2010)
4. R.C. Nigam, Law of Crimes in India (Asia Publishing House edition,
1965)
5. J. Horder, “Autonomy Provocation and duress,”706 Criminal Law
Review34 (1992).
6. J. Horder, “Criminal Culpability: The possibility of a general theory”, 12
Law & Philosophy, 193(1993). 11
7. G. Willia Mr., “Misadventures of manslaughter,”143 New Law Journal
6619 (1993).
8. R. A. Duff, “Choice character and criminal liability,” 12Law &
Philosophy 345 (1993).
9. K. M. Das, “Hello are you hurt,”98Criminal Law Journal41 (1992).

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