Stages of Crime

By: Hifajatali Sayyed

 Introduction
If a person commits a crime than the doing of it
involves four different stages.

1) Intention

2) Preparation

3) Attempt

4) Commission
 Intention
 It is the first stage in commission of crime wherein the person
conceives the intention to commit crime.

 It is the desire to commit an act.

 Intention is the direction of conduct towards the object.

 Mere intention to commit an offence not followed by any act, cannot

constitute an offence.

 The accused is not prosecuted at this stage because it is very

difficult for the prosecution to prove the guilty mind of the person.

 Intention is usually gathered from all the circumstances

along with the consequences that ensued.
 Preparation
 Preparation means to arrange the necessary measures for the
commission of the intended criminal act.

 Intention followed by a preparation is not enough to constitute the

crime.

 Preparation has not been made punishable because in most of the

cases the prosecution has failed to prove that the preparations in the
question were made for the commission of a particular crime.
 If A purchases a pistol with valid license and keeps the same in his pocket
duly loaded in order to kill his enemy B, but does nothing more. A has not
committed any offence as still he is at the stage of preparation and it will be
impossible for the prosecution to prove that A was carrying the loaded pistol
only for the purpose of killing B.
 Preparation when Punishable
 In some exceptional cases preparation is punishable,
following are some examples of such exceptional circumstances

• Preparation to wage war against the Government -Section

122.

• Preparation to commit depredation on territories of a

power at peace with Government of India- Section 126.

• Preparation to commit dacoity- Section 399.

• Preparation for counterfeiting of coins or Government

stamps- Sections 233-235, S. 255 and S. 257.
 Attempt
 An attempt to commit a crime is an act done with intent to commit
that crime and forming part of a series of acts which would
constitute its actual commission if it were not interrupted.

 Attempt is the direct movement towards the commission of a

crime.

 The act is more than mere preparation to the commission of an

offence.

 An attempt creates alarm which of itself is an injury. The act may

be sufficiently harmful to the society by reason of its close proximity
to the completed offence. So criminal law takes into consideration
the attempt and punishes it accordingly.
 Attempt
 There are three essentials of an attempt:-

 Guilty intention to commit an offence.

 Some act done towards the commission of the offence.

 The act must fall short of the completed offence.

 Eg: A, intending to murder Z, buys a gun and loads it. A has

not yet committed the offence. A fires the gun at Z, and if Z
survives the attack it can be said that A attempted to
commit the murder of Z.
 Attempts under IPC
 The Indian Penal Code has dealt with attempt in the following
four different ways-
1. Completed offences and attempts have been dealt with
in the same section and same punishment is prescribed for
both. For instance, section 121, 124-A, 391.
2. Attempts to commit offences and commission of specific
offences have been dealt with separately and separate
punishment is provided. For instance, murder is
punished under section 302 and attempt to murder under
section 307.
 Attempts under IPC
3. Only Attempt is made punishable. Eg: Attempt to commit
suicide is punished under section 309.

4. All other cases where no specific provisions regarding

attempt are made are covered under section 511 which
provides that the accused shall be punished with one-half of
the longest term of imprisonment provided for the offence or
with prescribed fine or with both.
 Test to Identify Attempt
It is easy to say that an attempt to commit offence begins where
preparation ends, but it is very difficult to find out where one
ends and other begins. To determine this various tests has been
laid down by the court.
1. Proximity test: This test states that if an act is near to the
accomplishment of the offence than it amounts to an
attempt. It measures the defendant’s progress by
examining how close the defendant is to completing the
offence. It analyses the things left to be done and not
what has already been done.
 Test to Identify Attempt
1. Proximity test:
Illustration: If A and B decides to poison their neighbor’s dog
because it barks loudly and consistently every night. A buys some
rat poison at the local hardware store. B coats a piece of beef with
the poison and throws it over the fence into the neighbor’s
yard. Fortunately, the neighbors are on an overnight camping trip,
and the dog is with them. The next day, after a night of silence, A
feels regret and climbs over the fence to see what happened to the
dog. When A sees the piece of beef untouched on the ground, he
picks it up and takes it back over the fence, later disposing of it in
the trash.
 Test to Identify Attempt
1. Proximity test:
Illustration: Here according to the proximity test, A and B have
probably committed the criminal act required for attempt. A and
B finished every act necessary to commit the crime of
Mischief by killing an animal (sec 429).

The only reason the crime was not successful was the
absence of the dog, which is a circumstance outside their
control.
 Test to Identify Attempt
 Abhayanand Mishra vs State of Bihar, AIR 1961
SC 1698.
• In this case, the accused applied to Patna University for M.A.
examination on the basis that he has obtained a B.A. degree.
Relying on the accused, the University issued admit card to
accused. After enquiry the University found that the accused
was not a graduate and he had been debarred from taking
university examination due to corrupt practices. He was
charged with attempt to commit cheating. The court
upholding the conviction stated that when a person makes
preparation with intention and does an act towards its
commission than it is an attempt to commit offence.
 Test to Identify Attempt
2. Locus Poenitentiae Test: It is a Latin phrase, which
means opportunity to withdraw. So long as the steps
taken by the accused leaves room for a reasonable
expectation that he might befall or for whatsoever
reason, desist from going ahead with the contemplated
act, then he will be treated in law, as only being in
preparation.
 Attempt
 Malkait Singh vs State of Punjab (AIR 1970 SC 713)

Here the appellant was arrested by Punjab Police 32 Miles

before the Punjab –Delhi border for exporting rice to Delhi
without license. The court held that it was mere preparation.
It was quite possible that the appellant might have change his
mind at any place before reaching the border and would not
have proceeded further in his journey.
 Test to Identify Attempt
3. The Unequivocality Test: It is based on the maxim,
‘Res ipsa loquitur’ which means things speaks of itself.
When the conduct of a person, in itself, shows that the
person unequivocally and without reasonable doubt,
actually intends to carry out a crime, then the conduct is
a criminal attempt to commit that crime. According to
this test, the act of accused unequivocally indicates his
intention to accomplish the criminal object.
 Test to Identify Attempt
 State of Maharashtra vs Mohd. Yakub (AIR 1980 sc 1111)
On receiving some secret information that silver would be transported
in Jeep and Truck from Bombay, police staff proceeded in two vehicles
to keep a watch. The officers followed the truck and the jeep which,
after travelling some distance, both vehicle took halt near a bridge and
the accused removed some small and heavy bundles from the truck and
placed them aside on the ground. The Customs Officers rushed to the
spot and arrested and searched the persons present there. At the same
time, the sound of the engine of a mechanised sea-craft from the side of
the creek was heard by the officers. The officers surrounded the
vehicles and found four silver ingots near the footpath leading to the
creek. Accused were questioned about their identity, and they falsely
gave their name and address. From the personal search, a pistol, knife
and some currency notes were found. Fifteen silver ingots concealed in
a shawl were found in the rear side of the jeep and twenty-four silver
ingots were found lying under saw-dust bags in the truck.
 Test to Identify Attempt
 State of Maharashtra vs Mohd. Yakub Cont…
The accused were charged for illegal export and violating
custom rules. On appeal when the case reached Supreme
Court, than the Court held that the intention of the
accused to export the silver from India by sea was clear
from the circumstances enumerated above. They were
taking the silver ingots concealed in the two vehicles
under cover of darkness. They had reached close to the
sea-shore and had started unloading the silver there near
a creek from which the sound of the engine of a sea-craft
was also heard. Beyond the stage of preparation, most of
the steps necessary in the course of export by sea, had
been taken. The act of the accused, itself shows the
intention. So the court convicted the accused.
 Test to Identify Attempt
 Pandharinath vs. State of Maharashtra (AIR 2010
SC 1453)
In this case, the victim was appointed as maid servant. On the
very first day of her work, at about 2.30-3.00 a.m. the
complainant felt that somebody is touching her body so she
got up. She found that the accused was sitting near her bed,
whereupon she shouted. Immediately, the accused gagged her
mouth and tried to lift her cloth. On hearing her cries, a
person came into the room and gave a slap on the face of
accused.
Here, the court held that the offence under Section 376 is not
proved in the instant case on the basis of the evidence on
record, but it is definitely a case of commission of the
offence of attempting to rape punishable u/s 376 r/w 511 of
IPC.
 Impossible Attempt
 An attempt is called as impossible attempt when the following
conditions are met.

1) Person intended to commit the offence;

2) He did everything that was required for the completion

of the offence; and

3) The completion of the offence was made

impossible by facts not known to him or her or
because of circumstances beyond his or her control.
 Impossible Attempt
 Impossibility is sometimes pleaded in answer to a charge
of attempt, with the accused contending that the facts
were such that it was impossible for him or her to
complete the offence no matter how hard he or she tried.
 Eg: A who, with intent to hurt B, prepares a glass filled
with poison. Unnoticed by A, C pours away the poison
and refills the glass with water which A, in ignorance of
what C has done, serves to B. Here A was liable for
attempting to cause hurt by administering poison.
 Impossible Attempt
 The concept of impossibility has been categorised into two
parts namely physical and legal impossibility.
 In cases of physical impossibility, some extraneous factual
circumstance makes it impossible for an accused to achieve
the result, whatever means he or she adopts.
 The consequence of physical impossibility is that the accused
is liable for the attempted offence.
 Eg: A makes an attempt to pick the pocket of Z by thrusting
his hand into Z’s pocket. Z is having nothing in his pocket than
also A is liable for attempt to commit theft.
 Impossible Attempt
 In legal impossibility, the result the accused
intends, if achieved, will not be the crime he or she
believed would be committed.
 In case of legal impossibility the person is under a
mistaken belief that his act is a crime but in fact his
act does not amounts to crime.
 An example is where the accused had taken his own
umbrella from a umbrella stand thinking that it
belongs to another person.
 Impossible Attempt
Asagarali Pradhania vs Emperor (AIR 1933 Cal 893)
The accused had given the complainant certain substances to procure a
miscarriage. The miscarriage could not be accomplished because the
substances were harmless. The court held that the accused was not
liable for the offence of attempting to cause a woman to have a
miscarriage under s 312 read with s 511 of the Penal Code.

Here the accused had not done everything that was required for the
completion of the offence. For that condition to be satisfied, the accused
would have had to give the woman a substance which would have
procured the miscarriage.

So the Court acquitted the accused.

 Commission or Accomplishment
 It is the final stage of crime.

 If the accused succeeds in his attempt to commit the

crime, he will be guilty of the offence and if his attempt is
unsuccessful he will be guilty of an attempt only.

 Eg: A fires at B with the intention of killing him, if B dies

than A is guilty of murder. If B is injured than A is guilty
of attempt to murder.
 Cases
 R. vs. Scofield [Cald. 397 (1784)]

In this case, the accused lighted a candle and

placed it into flammable material in a house with
the intent to burn it down, but the larger fire
never happened.

Here the court held the accused guilty of attempt

to commit mischief.