Attempt to

commit an
offence
India Penal Code
Legal Reasoning
Only 3 Months
Remaining!
Law Entrance Exam 2021
 Kriti Bhatnagar

● B.A LLB, NLIU Bhopal (2019)

● LLM, GNLU Gujarat (2020)
● Cleared UGC NET (2020)
● CLAT - All India Rank 339
Vast Syllabus vs Limited Time
5+ Subjects
Board Exams
20+ Books
Limited Time
New Pattern
Exclusive CLAT Batches
The Unacademy Advantage
 Subscribe Now
and Get 10%
Extra Off!
Apply Code:
KRITIB

KRITIB
Attempt

Attempt is the third or the penultimate stage of a criminal

offence. The stages of criminal offences are 1) intention, 2)
preparation, 3) Attempt, and 4) Forbidden Consequence
prohibited by law. Attempt is generally punishable under
Section 511 of the IPC. Whereas specific sections such as
307, 308 and 309 specifically cast the liability of attempt to
commit murder, attempt to commit culpable homicide and
attempt to commit suicide

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Attempt meaning

‘Attempt’ in general meaning is said to be an effort to

achieve tasks or activities. “An ‘Attempt to crime’ is when
someone tries to commit a crime but fails.

‘Attempt’ is not defined in the Indian Penal Code. Section

511 of the IPC only dealt with punishment for attempting to
commit offences.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Example of attempt

‘A’ makes an attempt to steal some valuable things by

breaking a box and finds after opening the box, that there
is nothing in it. In this case, there is no crime occurred but
it is punishable under the Indian Penal Code because it is
considered as an “Attempt to Commit a crime”.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Why is attempt punishable?

An attempt to commit a crime is a crime under the Indian

Penal Code. Every attempt, falls short of success must
create a threat in the mind of people which by itself is an
injury and the moral guilt of the offender is the same as if
he had succeeded. According to Section 511 of the IPC,
only half of the punishment is awarded because the injury
is not as great as if that crime had been committed.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Court’s defintition
‘Attempt’ should be taken as ordinary meaning. The
ordinary meaning of ‘Attempt’ to commit an offence is an
act or series of acts which leads inevitably to the
commission of the offence unless something which the
doer of the act neither foresaw not intended happens to
prevent this.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Examples

“If ‘A’ shoots ‘B’ by pistol to kill him. If ‘B’ dies, then ‘A’ is
liable for murder. If ‘B’ is injured, then ‘A’ is liable for
Attempt to murder”.
“If ‘A’ makes an attempt to pick the pocket of ‘Z’ by
inserting his hand into Z’s pocket. ‘A’ fails in the attempt in
reason of Z’s having nothing in his pocket. But ‘A’ is guilty
under Section 511 of the ‘Indian Penal Code’ because he
has attempted to commit the offence by putting a positive
step towards the commission of the offence.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Tests to determine attempt

a. The Proximity Rule: Proximity in Relation to Time and

Action or to Intention?

The act must reveal, with reasonable certainty, in

conjunction with other facts and circumstances an
intention (as distinguished from a mere desire or object) to
commit the particular offence

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Locus poenitentiae (Time for repentance)

Abandonment is a defence if further action is freely and

voluntarily abandoned before the act is put in process of
final execution. So long as the steps taken by the accused
leave room for doubt that he might of his own accord
desist from the act to be attempted he would still be
treated on the stage of preparation.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Impossibility

An act which is impossible to commit cannot be attempted

and so is not culpable. For instance, shooting a shadow,
administering sugar mistaking it to for arsenic, or killing a
man by witchcraft or cursing a person with an intention to
hurt Him, is no attempt in law.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Impossibility

Impossible acts are not punishable but the impossibility

must be absolute and not only relative. The illustrations to
Sec. 511 explain that trying to steal from an empty pocket
or trying to break open a box known to contain no jewels is
an attempt because it is an 'act towards the commission of
the offence.’ Although in these illustrations, the act itself is
impossible of performance, yet it constitutes an offence of
attempt to commit crime because the accused’s failure is
not due to his own act/omission.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Examples
Asgarali was a married man with a wife and two children. He
was having an affair with a neighbor woman who was a
divorcee. Asgarali promised marriage to her and she agreed
to have sexual relations with him. After a few months she
became pregnant with Asgarali;s child. Asgarali became
increasingly nervous and requested the woman to abort the
child, but she refused and asked him to come good on his
promise of marriage. Asgarali went to medical quack
and purchased Copper Sulphate tablets for aborting the child.
The next day he asked her to ingest the Copper Sulphate
tablets but she refused. Opon which Asgarali held her throat
and made her ingest a few tablets. The issue arose whether
Asgarali had attempted to cause miscarriage u/s. 312/511 of
the IPC. The Doctors informed the court that Copper Sulphate
cannot cause an abortion.
kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Examples
H and W were husband and wife respectively. H wanted to
marry a second time with X. When the wife, W found about
the wedding cards of her husband H’s, marriage with X,
she prosecuted her husband of attempt to commit bigamy
i.e. u/s. 494/511.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Examples

Abhayanand Mishra wanted to take admission in Patna

University. However he did not have the requisite Class
XIIth qualifications. Abhayanand deposited forged
marksheets to Patna University upon which Admit Card for
an entrance test was dispatched to him. However, the
University clerk discovered his fraud and informed the
police.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Examples
Bimla married om Prakash in the year 1951. They used to fight a lot
and Bimla left her husband. However, on assurance of Om’s parents
she returned back to her marital home. When she returned to her
marital home, the husband acted very sweetly for a few days but after
some time became viciously abusive towards her. He locked her up in
the bathroom for days without giving her any food for weeks.
One day Bimla found the door unlocked and escaped and went to a
nearby hospital. The Doctor wrote down that she was so emaciated
that her cheeks were hollow, she had no strength or muscles left, her
bones were protruding and she was looking like a dead body. The
issue arose was whether the husband had attempted to murder his
wife.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Example
A, with the intention of causing the death of a child of
tender years, exposes it in a desert place. Child does not
die.

Attempt or no attempt?

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Example
A, intending to murder Z, buys a gun and loads it.

Attempt?

A fires at b. Attempt?

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Examples
, intending to murder Z by poison, purchases poison and
mixes the same with food which remains in A’s keeping;

Attempt?

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Examples
A’ plans to do robbery in a bank and for that, he goes to
the bank where he finds a man in trouble, and instead of
focusing on the offence for which he went to the bank he
helped that man.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Example

‘A’ and ‘B’ are going to the party while coming back from
the party. ‘A’ tries to steal B’s purse to steal the money but
he finds nothing in that purse.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Examples

In this case, a truck loaded with paddy, destined for Delhi,

was intercepted at a place right before crossing the border
of Punjab. (the paddy export was banned under the
Punjab Paddy Order).

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Examples

A contractor who was supplying milk to a hospital was

found in the hospital compound with three gallons of stale
milk, going in the direction of the place where the cows
were about to be milked, his milk-can being similar to the
one in which the cows were milked.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Examples

The accused, on quarrelling with his brother, fetched a

sword, but was seized by others and disarmed before he
could use it.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
Examples

A woman ran to a well, stating that she would jump into it.
However, she was caught before she reached the well.

kritiBunacademy
KritiB Unacademy
SAMEERLIVE
KRITIB