At about 1:45 in the morning on 22 May 2025, near a temple in Nagda, Madhya Pradesh, a man raised a knife at another man’s neck. The intended victim threw up his left arm and took the blade on his forearm instead of his throat. He survived with incised wounds. The medical opinion later recorded that the injuries were neither deep nor on a vital part, and were not, by themselves, dangerous to life.
On those facts, the accused asked the court to drop the most serious charge against him. His argument was clean: if the wound was shallow and nowhere near a vital organ, how can this be attempt to murder? Charge me with causing hurt, not with trying to kill.
In November 2025, the Madhya Pradesh High Court refused. In Vivek @ Vicky v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2025), Justice Gajendra Singh held that at the stage of framing charges, the court is not running a mini-trial on how deep the cut went. It asks a narrower question: is there grave suspicion that the accused acted with the intention or knowledge needed for murder? The Court said the seriousness of the injury is not the deciding factor for attempt to murder, and that the settled principles built up over decades under Section 307 of the old Indian Penal Code carry directly into Section 109 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (Vivek @ Vicky v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 2025 MPHC-IND 32712, decided 11 November 2025).
That single idea is the spine of this whole offence, and it is the thing most people get wrong. Attempt to murder is not measured by the blood on the floor. A person can be convicted of attempt to murder even where the victim walks away without a scratch, and a person can be acquitted of it even after a deep wound, if the intention to kill was missing. The act and its result are treated separately. What the law hunts for is the intent behind the act.
That is why the move from IPC Section 307 to BNS Section 109 matters less than people fear. The number changed. The text, the ingredients, and the case law did not, except for one new line that bites hardest on repeat killers. Before you assume that an attempt-to-murder charge always means a deep wound and a guaranteed jail term, it pays to know exactly what Section 109 says, what it punishes, and how a court actually tests it.
Under Section 109(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, attempt to murder is punishable with imprisonment of up to ten years and a fine; if the act causes hurt to any person, the offender can instead be sentenced to imprisonment for life. Under Section 109(2), where a person already serving a life sentence attempts murder and causes hurt, the punishment can extend to death or imprisonment for life, meaning the remainder of that person’s natural life. The offence is cognizable, non-bailable, non-compoundable, and triable by a Court of Session. It corresponds to Section 307 of the old Indian Penal Code.
This guide breaks down the exact text of Section 109, the four ingredients the prosecution must prove, each tier of punishment, why the severity of injury is not decisive, when the offence is bailable, which court tries it, how it differs from Section 110 (attempt to commit culpable homicide), and how Section 109 maps onto the IPC provisions it replaced.
What Section 109 BNS actually says
Start with the text, because almost every misconception about this offence comes from not reading it closely. Section 109 of the BNS is split into two sub-sections, and they do different jobs.
Section 109(1) reads: “Whoever does any act with such intention or knowledge, and under such circumstances that, if he by that act caused death, he would be guilty of murder, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine; and if hurt is caused to any person by such act, the offender shall be liable either to imprisonment for life, or to such punishment as is hereinbefore mentioned.”
Read that slowly and the structure appears. The law is asking you to run a hypothetical. Take the act the accused actually did. Now imagine that act had succeeded in causing death. Would the accused, on those facts, have been guilty of murder? If the answer is yes, then doing the act, even without the death, is attempt to murder. The offence borrows its mental element wholesale from the definition of murder; it simply removes the requirement that the victim actually die.
Section 109(2) deals with a narrower, graver situation: “When any person offending under sub-section (1) is under sentence of imprisonment for life, he may, if hurt is caused, be punished with death or with imprisonment for life, which shall mean the remainder of that person’s natural life.” In plain terms, if someone who is already serving a life sentence attempts murder and causes hurt while doing it, the court can hand down the death penalty.
The statute also carries forward four illustrations from the old law. A fires a loaded gun at Z intending to kill him; even if Z is unhurt, A has committed the offence. A, intending to murder a child, leaves it in a deserted place to die. A buys a gun, loads it, and fires at Z. A poisons food and places it on Z’s table, or has it served. Each illustration marks the point at which intention plus an overt act crosses into a completed attempt, whether or not death or even injury follows.
The takeaway from the bare text is the same one the Madhya Pradesh High Court reached: Section 109 is built around the accused’s intention or knowledge and the act done towards killing. The wound is evidence of that intent, sometimes powerful evidence, but it is not the offence itself.
The four ingredients the prosecution must prove
So what does the prosecution actually have to establish to make out attempt to murder? Strip Section 109 down and four ingredients have to line up together.
One: intention or knowledge amounting to murder. This is the heart of the offence. The accused must have acted either with the intention of causing death, or with the intention of causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death, or with the knowledge that the act is so imminently dangerous that it must in all probability cause death. These are the same mental states that define murder. Without one of them, the charge collapses into a lesser offence such as causing hurt or grievous hurt.
Two: an overt act towards the killing. Indian criminal law treats a crime as moving through four stages: intention, preparation, attempt, and commission. Intention alone is not punishable, and mere preparation usually is not either. The line is crossed at attempt, when the accused does some act that moves beyond getting ready and towards actually carrying out the killing. Buying poison is preparation. Mixing it into the victim’s food and serving it is an attempt. For a fuller view of where attempt sits in the criminal process, our walkthrough of the stages of a criminal trial under the BNSS sets the procedure in context.
Three: the act must be capable of the hypothetical. The act has to be of a kind that could, in the circumstances, have caused death so as to make the accused guilty of murder. This is the link between the physical act and the legal definition of murder that Section 109 imports.
Four: death need not result, and injury need not be caused at all. This is the ingredient that surprises people. The offence is complete the moment the intended act is done with the required intent. Whether the victim dies, is injured, or escapes untouched goes to sentencing, not to whether the offence exists.
The clearest illustration of that fourth point is the Supreme Court’s decision in Om Prakash v. State of Punjab, AIR 1961 SC 1782. A husband had systematically starved his wife, confining her and denying her food over a long period; she survived only because she escaped and was hospitalised. The defence argued there could be no attempt to murder because no single act would have caused immediate death. The Court rejected that. It held that a person commits attempt to murder when, intending to kill, he does an act towards that end, and the words “by that act” do not require the act’s immediate effect to be death. A result that would follow after a lapse of time still counts. Starvation, drawn out over weeks, was an attempt to murder.
BNS Section 109 · Attempt to Murder (formerly IPC 307)
Punishment: three tiers of severity
Tier 1 — Attempt, no hurt caused [s.109(1)]
Imprisonment up to 10 years + fine.
Tier 2 — Attempt that causes hurt [s.109(1)]
Imprisonment for life, or up to 10 years + fine.
Tier 3 — Life convict, hurt caused [s.109(2)]
Death, or imprisonment for life (remainder of natural life).
| Cognizable | Yes — arrest without warrant |
| Bailable | No — bail at court’s discretion |
| Compoundable | No — not in the s.359 BNSS list |
| Triable by | Court of Session |
Injury is not essential — intention or knowledge decides the offence. Source: BNS 2023, s.109; BNSS 2023 First Schedule.
Punishment under Section 109: the tiers
What does an attempt-to-murder conviction actually cost? Section 109 lays out a graded scale, and the grade depends on whether hurt was caused and on the status of the offender.
Attempt without hurt. Where the act is done with murderous intent but causes no hurt to anyone, the punishment under Section 109(1) is imprisonment of either description for a term that may extend to ten years, plus a fine. “Imprisonment of either description” means the court may impose simple or rigorous imprisonment. Ten years is the ceiling, not a fixed term; the actual sentence is shaped by the gravity of the act, the weapon, and the circumstances.
Attempt that causes hurt. Where the same act does cause hurt to any person, Section 109(1) raises the stakes: the offender can instead be sentenced to imprisonment for life, or to the punishment already mentioned (up to ten years and fine). Once a victim is actually injured, life imprisonment becomes available to the court. Which way the court goes depends on how grave the attempt was.
Attempt by a life convict who causes hurt. This is the most severe tier, and it lives in Section 109(2). If the person committing the attempt is already under a sentence of imprisonment for life, and the attempt causes hurt, the court may impose death or imprisonment for life. The BNS adds a clarifying phrase the old IPC did not spell out here: imprisonment for life in this situation means imprisonment for the remainder of that person’s natural life, closing the door on any assumption that “life” quietly means fourteen years.
A practical point worth holding on to: the ten-year maximum for an ordinary attempt is unchanged from IPC Section 307. What Section 109 sharpens is the top end, the express natural-life language for the worst case. For everyday attempt-to-murder cases, the sentence still turns on intent and circumstances, exactly as it did under the old Code.
Why the severity of injury is not decisive
Here is the question that decides more attempt-to-murder cases than any other: if the wound was minor, can it still be Section 109? The answer, settled across decades of Supreme Court authority, is yes.
The leading statement is in State of Maharashtra v. Balram Bama Patil, (1983) 2 SCC 28. The Court held that to justify a conviction for attempt to murder, it is not essential that a bodily injury capable of causing death should have been inflicted. The section, it explained, draws a distinction between the act of the accused and its result. An act may produce no injury at all and still attract the offence, provided it was done with the required intention or knowledge and in the circumstances the section describes. The nature of the injury, where there is one, is useful evidence of intention, but it is not the test.
The point was put even more bluntly in State of M.P. v. Saleem, (2005) 5 SCC 554. The determinative question, the Court said, is the intention or knowledge, not the nature of the injury. The fact that the injury inflicted was simple or minor does not, by itself, rule out Section 307 (now Section 109). A single blow, a shallow cut, even no wound at all, none of these is fatal to the charge if the intent to kill is established by the surrounding circumstances: the weapon used, the part of the body aimed at, the force behind the blow, and what the accused said and did.
This is precisely the principle the Madhya Pradesh High Court applied in the Vivek @ Vicky case that opens this article. The defence leaned entirely on the medical report, that the injuries were not deep and not on a vital part. The Court answered that at the charge-framing stage it does not weigh the depth of the wound against the charge; it asks whether there is grave suspicion of murderous intent, and an attempt aimed at the neck, intercepted by the victim’s arm, comfortably crosses that line. The injury being minor did not save the accused, because the aim was the throat.
The flip side is just as real, and worth saying for balance. Because intention is everything, the same medical facts can also defeat a Section 109 charge where the prosecution cannot show murderous intent, for instance, a single impulsive blow in a sudden scuffle with no aim at a vital part may be read as causing hurt or grievous hurt, not attempt to murder. The wound does not decide the case in either direction; it is one piece of evidence about what the accused meant to do.
Is attempt to murder bailable and cognizable?
If someone is arrested for attempt to murder, what are their rights at the police station and the courthouse? For an offence this grave, the classifications are uniform, and there is no value-based or first-offence softening of the kind you see in property offences.
Attempt to murder under Section 109 is a cognizable offence. The police can register an FIR and begin investigating, and can arrest, without first obtaining a warrant or a Magistrate’s order. There is no non-cognizable version of this offence. If you want the underlying framework of when police can act on their own, our explainer on cognizable and non-cognizable offences under the BNS lays out the full distinction.
It is also a non-bailable offence. That phrase is widely misread, so be exact: non-bailable does not mean bail is impossible. It means bail is not a matter of right. The accused must apply, and the court, the Sessions Court given the gravity, exercises discretion, weighing the seriousness of the allegation, the nature of the evidence, the risk of the accused absconding or influencing witnesses, and the likelihood of repetition. Our breakdown of bailable and non-bailable offences explains how that discretion is structured.
Because the offence is non-bailable, anticipatory bail is a live option: a person who fears arrest for attempt to murder can approach the Sessions Court or the High Court for pre-arrest protection. Given the seriousness of the charge, courts scrutinise such applications closely, and grant or refuse them on the strength of the material against the applicant.
Is attempt to murder compoundable? Settling a Section 109 case
A lot of attempt-to-murder cases grow out of private quarrels, family feuds, neighbour disputes, brawls that escalated. Can the parties simply settle and end the case? The short answer is no, with a narrow and carefully guarded exception.
Attempt to murder is not a compoundable offence. It does not appear in the list of offences that parties may compound under Section 359 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (the successor to Section 320 of the old Code of Criminal Procedure). Unlike theft, which the owner of the property can compound, attempt to murder is treated as an offence against the State and society, not merely against the injured individual. A private “settlement” does not, on its own, end a Section 109 prosecution.
There is, however, a separate route that is often confused with compounding. A High Court has inherent power under Section 528 of the BNSS (the successor to Section 482 CrPC) to quash criminal proceedings, including in serious cases, where the parties have genuinely settled. The Supreme Court mapped the limits of that power for attempt-to-murder cases in Narinder Singh v. State of Punjab, (2014) 6 SCC 466. The Court held that offences like Section 307 are not private wrongs and that quashing on the basis of a compromise must be approached with great caution; but it accepted that where the evidence is weak, the injury minor, the dispute essentially personal, and continuing the trial would serve no purpose, a High Court may quash. This is a discretionary, fact-specific safety valve exercised by the High Court, not a right to compound that the parties can invoke at the trial court. The distinction matters: settling an attempt-to-murder case is possible only if a High Court is persuaded to use its inherent power, and only in the narrow band of cases the law allows.
Section 109 vs Section 110: attempt to murder vs attempt to culpable homicide
One of the most common charging errors, both under the old Code and the new one, is reaching for attempt to murder when the facts actually point to its lesser cousin. The BNS keeps the two offences side by side, and the difference between them decides years of a person’s life.
Section 109 punishes attempt to murder. Section 110 of the BNS punishes attempt to commit culpable homicide not amounting to murder, carrying forward Section 308 of the old IPC. The mental element is lower: the accused acts with the intention or knowledge that, had death resulted, the offence would have been culpable homicide not amounting to murder, typically because a recognised exception applies, such as grave and sudden provocation, or the absence of the specific intent or knowledge that elevates a killing to murder.
The punishment gap reflects that lower culpability. Under Section 110, an attempt to commit culpable homicide that causes no hurt is punishable with imprisonment of up to three years, or a fine, or both; where the act causes hurt, the maximum rises to seven years and a fine. Compare that with Section 109’s ten-years-to-life range, and you see why the choice between the two sections is fought hard in court.
| Section 109 BNS | Section 110 BNS | |
|---|---|---|
| Offence | Attempt to murder | Attempt to commit culpable homicide not amounting to murder |
| Old IPC section | 307 | 308 |
| Mental element | Intention/knowledge that would make a resulting death murder | Intention/knowledge that would make a resulting death culpable homicide not amounting to murder |
| Punishment (no hurt) | Up to 10 years + fine | Up to 3 years, or fine, or both |
| Punishment (hurt caused) | Up to life imprisonment | Up to 7 years + fine |
| Classification | Cognizable, non-bailable, Court of Session | Cognizable, non-bailable, Court of Session |
In practice, the dividing line is the same one that separates murder from culpable homicide in a completed killing: whether the intention or knowledge reaches the murder threshold, or whether an exception pulls it down a level. Get that classification wrong at the charging stage and the entire trial proceeds on the wrong footing.
IPC 307 to BNS 109: what actually changed
If you trained on the Indian Penal Code, you need a clean map, because the offence has moved house. The good news is that the substance barely shifted.
| IPC (old) | BNS (new) | Offence |
|---|---|---|
| 307 | 109 | Attempt to murder |
| 308 | 110 | Attempt to commit culpable homicide |
| 302 | 103 | Murder |
| 304 | 105 | Culpable homicide not amounting to murder |
Three things are worth internalising about the 307-to-109 move. First, the definition and ingredients are unchanged. The hypothetical-murder test, the four ingredients, and the rule that injury is not essential all carry over intact, which is exactly why courts keep citing IPC-era authorities like Om Prakash, Balram Bama Patil, and Saleem when applying Section 109. The Vivek @ Vicky judgment says this in so many words.
Second, the one substantive addition is in Section 109(2): the express statement that, for a life convict who attempts murder and causes hurt, imprisonment for life means the remainder of the convict’s natural life. This aligns attempt to murder with the BNS’s general approach of spelling out when “life” means the full natural life rather than a remittable term.
Third, and most practically, timing decides which code applies. The BNS came into force on 1 July 2024 and governs offences committed on or after that date. An attempt to murder committed before 1 July 2024 is still charged and tried under Section 307 of the IPC, even if the trial runs into 2026. So the date of the incident, not the date of the trial, fixes whether you cite 307 or 109. For a sense of how the same renumbering exercise played out for a very different offence, see our breakdown of cheating under Section 318 BNS, which replaced the old Section 420.
How a court frames the charge: the “grave suspicion” test
Because attempt to murder turns on intention, the first real battle in most cases is not the verdict but the charge, the moment the court decides whether the accused will stand trial under Section 109 at all. The Vivek @ Vicky case is a clean illustration of how that stage works, and it is worth understanding if you ever face, or argue, such a charge.
When a case reaches the Court of Session, the judge first considers whether to discharge the accused or to frame a charge. At that stage the court does not weigh the evidence as if delivering a verdict. It applies what the courts call the “grave suspicion” test: if the material on record discloses grave suspicion that the accused committed the offence, a charge must be framed and the trial must proceed; only if the suspicion is not grave, or the material is groundless, can the accused be discharged. This standard, long settled under Sections 227 and 228 of the old CrPC, now operates under Section 250 of the BNSS, the provision for discharge in a Sessions trial.
In Vivek @ Vicky, the accused tried to win at this preliminary stage by pointing to the medical report. The High Court refused to let the charge-framing hearing turn into a mini-trial on the depth of the wound. The allegation, that the accused threatened to kill and struck at the victim’s neck, raised a grave suspicion of murderous intent; whether that suspicion ripens into proof beyond reasonable doubt is a matter for the full trial, not the charge stage. So the Section 109 charge stood.
The practical lesson cuts both ways. For the prosecution, a minor injury is not a reason to downgrade an attempt-to-murder charge if the intent is there. For the defence, the place to defeat a weak Section 109 case is usually not the charge-framing stage, where the threshold is only grave suspicion, but the trial itself, where the prosecution must actually prove the murderous intent beyond reasonable doubt.
Frequently asked questions
1. What is the punishment for attempt to murder under BNS Section 109?
Where the act causes no hurt, the punishment is imprisonment of up to ten years and a fine. Where the act causes hurt to any person, the offender can instead be sentenced to imprisonment for life. Where a person already serving a life sentence attempts murder and causes hurt, the court can impose death or imprisonment for the remainder of natural life.
2. Which IPC section does BNS Section 109 replace?
Section 109 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 corresponds to Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. The definition and ingredients are carried forward almost unchanged, with one addition clarifying natural-life imprisonment in Section 109(2).
3. Is attempt to murder a bailable offence?
No. Attempt to murder under Section 109 is non-bailable, which means bail is at the discretion of the court rather than a matter of right. The accused usually applies to the Sessions Court, which decides based on the gravity and the evidence.
4. Is attempt to murder cognizable?
Yes. It is a cognizable offence, so the police can register an FIR, investigate, and arrest without a warrant or prior Magistrate’s order.
5. Can an attempt-to-murder case be settled or compounded?
It is not compoundable, so the parties cannot simply compromise and end the case under Section 359 BNSS. A High Court may, however, quash proceedings in a genuine settlement using its inherent power under Section 528 BNSS, but only with great caution and in limited circumstances, as the Supreme Court explained in Narinder Singh v. State of Punjab.
6. Is injury necessary to prove attempt to murder?
No. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that no injury, or only a minor injury, does not by itself rule out attempt to murder. What matters is the intention or knowledge with which the act was done, not the seriousness of the wound.
7. What is the difference between Section 109 and Section 110 BNS?
Section 109 is attempt to murder; Section 110 is attempt to commit culpable homicide not amounting to murder (old IPC Section 308). Section 110 involves a lower mental element and carries a lighter punishment, up to three years where no hurt is caused, and up to seven years where hurt is caused.
8. Which court tries an attempt-to-murder case?
Attempt to murder under Section 109 is triable by a Court of Session, reflecting the gravity of the offence and the punishment it can attract.
9. Can you get the death penalty for attempt to murder?
Only in the narrow situation in Section 109(2): where the person committing the attempt is already under a sentence of imprisonment for life and the attempt causes hurt. In that case the court may impose death. For an ordinary attempt to murder, the maximum is ten years, or life imprisonment where hurt is caused.
10. What are the ingredients of attempt to murder?
The accused must act with intention or knowledge that would make a resulting death amount to murder; must do an overt act towards the killing that goes beyond mere preparation; the act must be capable of causing death in the circumstances; and the offence is complete whether or not death or injury actually results.
11. Does Section 109 apply if the victim survives completely unharmed?
Yes. The offence is complete once the act is done with murderous intent. Firing a loaded gun at someone and missing, for example, is still attempt to murder even though the target is untouched.
12. When did BNS Section 109 come into force?
The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 came into force on 1 July 2024 and applies to offences committed on or after that date. An attempt to murder committed before then is still tried under Section 307 of the IPC.
13. What is the “grave suspicion” test in an attempt-to-murder case?
At the charge-framing stage, the court does not conduct a full trial. It frames a charge under Section 109 if the material discloses grave suspicion that the accused acted with murderous intent. The depth of the injury is not weighed at this stage, as the Madhya Pradesh High Court held in Vivek @ Vicky v. State of Madhya Pradesh.
14. Can a single blow amount to attempt to murder?
Yes, it can. The Supreme Court has held that a single blow, even one causing a minor injury, can attract the offence if it was struck with the intention or knowledge required for murder, judged from the weapon, the part of the body targeted, and the surrounding circumstances.
References
Cases
1. Om Prakash v. State of Punjab, AIR 1961 SC 1782. Indian Kanoon
2. State of Maharashtra v. Balram Bama Patil, (1983) 2 SCC 28. Indian Kanoon
3. State of M.P. v. Saleem, (2005) 5 SCC 554. Indian Kanoon
4. Narinder Singh v. State of Punjab, (2014) 6 SCC 466. Indian Kanoon
5. Vivek @ Vicky v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 2025 MPHC-IND 32712 (Madhya Pradesh High Court, 11 November 2025). Indian Kanoon
Statutes
– Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, Sections 109, 110, 103, and 105. India Code
– Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, Sections 250, 359, and 528. India Code
– Indian Penal Code, 1860, Sections 307 and 308. India Code
Legal disclaimer
This article is published for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice, and no lawyer-client relationship is created by reading this content. Laws and judicial interpretations change over time, and the application of Section 109 BNS to any case turns on its specific facts. For advice on a specific attempt-to-murder case, consult a qualified advocate.
