Graphics: SC Defines Murder vs Attempt to Murder.
Supreme Court Clarifies Difference Between Murder and Attempt to Murder: In a ruling with profound implications for how homicide cases are tried in India, the Supreme Court has clarified that the mere passage of time between an injury and the victim’s eventual death does not reduce the culpability of the accused from murder to attempt to murder.
A two-judge bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan, while deciding Maniklal Sahu v. State of Chhattisgarh, emphasized that what matters is whether the death was a natural, probable, or necessary consequence of the original injury. If complications like septicemia or pneumonia flow directly from the injury, the accused remains liable for murder under Section 302 of the IPC.
Although the Court ultimately upheld the High Court’s reduced conviction under Section 307 IPC—since the State had not appealed—the judgment is being hailed for its detailed guidance, which seeks to correct what it called a “gross error” in the lower court’s reasoning.
The Case That Sparked the Ruling
The appellant, Maniklal Sahu, trespassed into the victim Rekhchand’s house, assaulted him, and pushed him off a terrace. Rekhchand sustained a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed. Over the following nine months, he developed bedsores, septicemia, and pneumonia, which doctors confirmed were directly traceable to his paralysis.
The trial court convicted Sahu of murder. But the Chhattisgarh High Court reduced this to attempt to murder, citing the nine-month delay in death and possible lapses in treatment.
The Supreme Court disagreed with this reasoning, stressing that:
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The injuries never healed and remained life-threatening.
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Death was a foreseeable outcome of the assault.
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The adequacy of medical treatment was irrelevant.
“If the complications or developments are the natural, or probable, or necessary consequence of the injury, and if it is reasonably contemplated as its result, the injury could be said to have caused death,” the Court said.
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Standing on the Shoulders of Precedent
This ruling does not emerge in a vacuum—it builds upon decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence on homicide and causation.
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Virsa Singh v. State of Punjab (1958): Perhaps the most influential precedent, this case established that if an injury is sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, and the accused intended to inflict that injury, the offence amounts to murder under Section 300 “Thirdly.” The Court in Sahu leaned on this principle to emphasize that foreseeability, not timing, determines culpability.
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State of Andhra Pradesh v. Rayavarapu Punnayya (1976): The Court famously distinguished between culpable homicide and murder, describing the former as the “genus” and the latter as a “species.” The Sahu ruling echoes this distinction, stressing that if complications are a proximate and natural outcome of an injury, the case squarely falls within murder.
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Keshoram v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2002): In this case, the Court upheld a murder conviction where the victim died weeks after an assault, reaffirming that delayed death does not dilute liability if the chain of causation remains intact.
By situating its ruling within this continuum, the Court in Sahu reinforced a consistent theme: the law must focus on the fatal nature of the injury and the foreseeability of death, rather than peripheral factors like medical care or time gaps.
Supreme Court of India.
Why This Matters for the Criminal Justice System
The ruling addresses a recurring problem in homicide cases: victims often die long after the assault, either due to prolonged hospitalizations, infections, or complications from immobility. Defense lawyers frequently argue that such deaths are too remote to hold the accused fully liable.
The Supreme Court’s response is clear: time does not heal culpability.
The nine guiding principles laid down in the judgment mean:
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Fatal injuries remain murder, even with delayed death.
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Medical treatment—whether effective, negligent, or absent—does not sever liability.
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Intervening causes matter only if they are unexpected and unrelated to the injury.
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Courts must assess not just individual wounds but also their cumulative effect.
This framework gives trial and appellate courts a roadmap, reducing scope for inconsistent reasoning in homicide prosecutions.
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The Human Dimension of the Case
Beyond the legal doctrines lies the lived reality of victims. Rekhchand’s nine months of suffering—paralysis, infections, and eventual pneumonia—illustrate how the consequences of violence extend far beyond the initial assault.
By recognizing that these complications were foreseeable outcomes of the original injury, the Court underscored the importance of treating the law of homicide as rooted in medical realities rather than abstract timelines.
Although the conviction in Sahu ultimately stood at attempt to murder due to procedural constraints, the Court’s doctrinal observations will likely shape the outcome of future cases. Prosecutors now have stronger grounds to argue that delayed deaths linked to original injuries should still attract Section 302 liability.
In effect, the ruling affirms a simple but powerful principle: an assailant cannot escape a murder charge simply because the victim clings to life for days, months, or even years before succumbing.
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