The lower courts had reasoned that because a medical board found the injuries grievous but not dangerous to life, Section 307 could not apply. The Supreme Court corrected the premise. The gravity of the injury, it held, is relevant but not decisive; a simple hurt, or even none, can still found an attempt-to-murder charge, because the true ingredient is the intention or knowledge that the act could cause death. On the facts, however, the Court declined to add the charge, since no such intention had ever been alleged and the application to alter the charge had come at a late stage of the trial.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has held that the grievousness of the injuries sustained, or the possibility that an injury could have led to death, is not a necessary ingredient to attract Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code, and that the offence of attempt to murder turns on an act done with the intention or knowledge that it could cause death [Surender Kumar v. State of Haryana and Others].
A Bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice K. Vinod Chandran laid down that clarification while dismissing the petitioner’s plea to add a Section 307 charge, holding on the facts that the refusal to incorporate the charge was justified.
The background
The case arose from a dispute over waterlogging caused by the draining of rainwater, which led to an assault on the petitioner, his brother and his uncle. An FIR was registered under Sections 147, 148, 149, 323, 325 and 506 IPC against six accused, charges were framed and the trial commenced. A neurosurgeon at a private hospital, examined as a prosecution witness, deposed that a fracture on the brother’s parietal bone with an underlying haemorrhagic contusion could, in his opinion, have been dangerous to life.
At the accused’s instance during investigation, the injuries were re-examined by a Medical Board, which opined that the injuries, though grievous, did not pose any danger to life. After the prosecution evidence, the petitioner applied to alter the charge to one under Section 307; the Judicial Magistrate at Karnal dismissed the application, holding that the Medical Board’s report prevailed. A revision before the Sessions Court failed, that court additionally noting that the first informant had not alleged that the accused attacked with the intention to kill, and that two of the accused had themselves suffered multiple injuries. The High Court affirmed the refusal, reasoning that the private-hospital neurosurgeon’s opinion was superseded by that of the Government Medical College Board.
The two limbs of Section 307
The Court parsed the structure of the provision. Section 307, it explained, has two limbs so far as punishment is concerned but only one as regards culpability. Culpability is established where an act is committed with such intention or knowledge that, had it caused death, the perpetrator would have been guilty of murder. As to punishment, the first limb provides imprisonment of either description up to ten years with fine; the second limb provides that where such an act causes hurt to any person, the offender is liable to imprisonment for life or the lesser punishment under the first limb.
Hurt, whether simple or grievous, the Court held, is not a precondition to attract Section 307; it is only where hurt results, from an act done with the requisite intention or knowledge, that the graver punishment under the second limb becomes available.
The Court traced the settled line of authority. In State of Madhya Pradesh v. Kashiram, it noted, it had been held that a conviction under Section 307 requires intent coupled with some overt act in execution, and that a bodily injury capable of causing death, or even simple hurt, is not essential; the intention to kill or knowledge that death would occur is a question of fact in each case. Chimanbhai Jagabhai Patel set out the ingredients as the overt act, the intention or knowledge to cause a bodily injury likely to cause death or so imminently dangerous that death would in all probability result, and the absence of any excuse for incurring that risk. Saleem alias Chamaru held that a simple injury does not, as a corollary, mean the absence of an intention to kill, which must be discerned from the surrounding circumstances, while Kanha and Jage Ram held that the absence of a fatal injury does not dislodge Section 307, though the nature and gravity of the injury and the weapon used may support an inference of intent.
The nature of the hurt, on which the courts below had laboured, the Court held, was relevant but could not on that sole basis found a charge of attempt to murder:
“We are of the opinion that the grievousness of the injuries or the possibility of injury which could have led to death, is not a necessary ingredient to attract Section 307.”
Why the charge was still not added
Having corrected the legal premise, the Court nonetheless upheld the refusal to add the charge, on a different and factual ground. What the courts below had got wrong was the reason; what they had got right, in the Supreme Court’s view, was the result, because the Sessions Court had also found that no intention or knowledge attracting Section 307 had been alleged.
The trial, the Court noted, had proceeded substantially before the prayer to bring in Section 307 was made. Both medical certificates had been available when the charge-sheet was filed, having been obtained during investigation; yet the injured victim had not, at the stage of cognizance, complained that Section 307 had been left out, and the section did not figure in the charge-sheet. The injured were conscious of the injuries they had sustained and aware of the manner of the attack, and had raised no case of an intention or knowledge attracting Section 307 at the initial stage, at cognizance, or when the evidence was being led; nor had the investigation detected any such case. In those circumstances, an application made at a late stage could not be entertained, and the rejection of the prayer was justified.
The Court dismissed the special leave petition, but clarified that it remains the court’s prerogative to alter the charge at any time while the trial continues, provided there is sound and justifiable cause emanating from the evidence led.
Why it matters
The judgment restates, and applies, a proposition that is settled in principle but persistently misapplied in practice: attempt to murder is an offence of intention, not of outcome. Courts and investigators frequently treat the medical assessment of an injury, whether it is simple or grievous, whether it endangered life, as the decisive test for Section 307, and downgrade or drop the charge when the injury proves less serious than first thought. The Supreme Court’s clarification is that this inverts the inquiry: the gravity of the injury is a piece of evidence from which intention may be inferred, but it is the intention or knowledge to cause death that constitutes the offence, and a minor injury, or none at all, does not preclude it.
That correction matters beyond this case, because the reasoning of the courts below, that a Medical Board’s finding of no danger to life displaced Section 307, is a common error that can let a genuine attempt-to-murder case slip into a lesser charge purely on the fortuity of how much harm was done. By anchoring the offence in mens rea and the surrounding circumstances, including the weapon used and the manner of the attack, the Court keeps the focus where the statute puts it.
The outcome, however, illustrates that a correct legal test does not by itself decide a case. Here the intention that Section 307 requires was never alleged, by the informant, at cognizance, in the charge-sheet or in the evidence, and the prayer to add the charge came only after the prosecution evidence had closed. The Court’s refusal to entertain so belated an application, coupled with its express reminder that a charge may be altered at any stage where the evidence justifiably warrants it, marks the balance the law strikes: the power to correct the charge is always available, but it must rest on material in the record and be exercised in time, not deployed as an afterthought once the trial has run its course.
Case Title: Surender Kumar v. State of Haryana and Others [SLP (Crl.) No. 14611 of 2026]
Bench: Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice K. Vinod Chandran, Supreme Court of India
Date of Order: September 8, 2026 | Neutral Citation: 2026 INSC 1006
Status: Special leave petition dismissed. Refusal to add a Section 307 IPC charge upheld; the Court clarified that the grievousness of injury is not a necessary ingredient of Section 307, and that a charge may be altered at any stage on sound cause from the evidence.