Source: Supreme Court

Why in News?

Recently, the Supreme Court in the matter of Nanhe v. State of UP, held that the Doctrine of Transfer of Malice provides that where there is mens rea (guilty mind) of committing an offence, it can be transferred to another.

What was the Background of Nanhe v. State of UP Case?

• In this case, the informant Mohd. Ali lodged First Information Report (FIR) at the police station on 30^th May 2007 stating that on the said date at about 3:30 p.m. he was going from home to the shop of Sant Ram for purchasing some domestic items along with his son, Saddam Hussain (deceased).
• When he reached the shop, he saw Mahendra and Nanhe (appellant) quarrelling with each other.
• The appellant then fired a shot that pierced the neck of the deceased while Mahendra sustained injuries.
• The trial court held the appellant to be guilty of an offence under Section 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC).
• The judgment and order of conviction and sentencing the appellant was affirmed by the High Court of Allahabad.
• Aggrieved by this, the appellant filed an appeal before the SC.
• The appeal is devoid of merit and was accordingly dismissed by the SC.

What were the Court’s Observations?

• A bench comprising of Justices Abhay S. Oka and Pankaj Mithal invoked the doctrine of transferred malice to uphold the conviction of the appellant in a murder case under section 302 IPC and stated that if a person has an intention to commit an offense or cause the death of any person but kills one whose death he never intended to cause, he would still be guilty of causing death.
• The Court further held that the appellant had no intention to kill the deceased as he had fired with an intention to settle his score with another person Mahendra with whom he had entered into a harsh argument. However, the Court held that it made no difference since Doctrine of Transfer of Malice provides that where there is mens rea of committing an offence, it can be transferred to another.

What is the Doctrine of Transfer of Malice?

• About:
  • The Doctrine of Transfer of Malice also referred as Transmigration of Motive is contained in Section 301 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC).
  • Section 301 deals with the culpable homicide by causing death of person other than person whose death was intended.
  • It states that if a person, by doing anything which he intends or knows to be likely to cause death, commits culpable homicide by causing the death of any person, whose death he neither intends nor knows himself to be likely to cause, the culpable homicide committed by the offender is of the description of which it would have been if he had caused the death of the person whose death he intended or knew himself to be likely to cause.
  • This doctrine provides that where there is mens rea of committing an offence, it can be transferred to another.
  • To illustrate the said doctrine, an example could be given of a person who had intention to kill a person but by mistake kills another person, then he would still be held guilty of committing murder even in the absence of intention to kill that particular person.
• Case Law:
  • In the case of Shankarlal Kacharabhai & Ors v. The State of Gujarat (1965), the Supreme Court while discussing the scope of Section 301 IPC held as under:
    • It embodies what the English authors describe as the doctrine of transfer of malice or the transmigration of motive.
    • Under the section if A intends to kill B but kills C whose death, he neither intends nor knows himself to be likely to cause, the intention to kill C is by law attributed to him.
    • If A aims his shot at B, but it misses B either because B moves out of the range of the shot or because the shot misses the mark and hits some other person C, whether within sight or out of sight, under section 301 of IPC, A is deemed to have hit C with the intention to kill him.
    • What is to be noticed is that to invoke section 301 of IPC A shall not have any intention to cause the death or the knowledge that he is likely to cause the death of C.