Abhayanand Mishra v. State of Bihar

Facts

The appellant applied to Patna University for permission to sit the 1954 M.A. (English) examination as a private candidate, falsely representing himself as a B.A. graduate of 1951 and a schoolteacher, and supporting the application with forged certificates. The University, deceived by these representations, granted permission, and on receipt of fees and photographs prepared and dispatched an admission card to the headmaster of the school. Before the card reached him, the fraud was discovered: the appellant was neither a graduate nor a teacher and had earlier been debarred from examinations for corrupt practices. He was convicted of attempting to cheat under Section 420 read with Section 511 IPC.

Issues

• Whether the admission card, though of no pecuniary value, constituted 'property' for the purposes of cheating under Section 415 IPC.
• Whether the appellant's conduct amounted to an 'attempt' to cheat under Section 511 IPC or merely to 'preparation' that was not punishable.

Arguments

The appellant contended that the admission card had no monetary value and so was not 'property', that his conduct amounted at most to preparation and not attempt, and that even had he obtained the card and sat the examination the University would have suffered no real harm. The State contended that the admission card was of immense value to the candidate, that the appellant had with the requisite dishonest intent done acts towards completing the offence, and that this constituted a punishable attempt to cheat.

Held

The Court upheld the conviction. It held that although the admission card carried no money value, it had immense value to the candidate as it alone entitled him to enter the hall and sit the examination, and therefore qualified as 'property'. On the attempt question, the Court laid down that a person commits the offence of attempt when (i) he intends to commit the offence, and (ii) having made preparations and with intent to commit it, he does an act towards its commission, which act need not be the penultimate act but must be done in the course of committing the offence. Preparation here was complete when the appellant readied the false application; the moment he dispatched it to the University he entered the realm of attempting to cheat. The act of deceiving the University, which acted on the false representation by issuing the card, therefore amounted to an attempt to cheat and not mere preparation.

Ratio decidendi

An attempt under Section 511 IPC begins as soon as the accused, after completing his preparation and with the intention of committing the offence, does an act towards its commission; the act need not be the last or penultimate act, so long as it is done in the course of committing the offence. The line between preparation and attempt is crossed the moment the offender takes a step that is a direct movement towards the commission of the crime.

Significance

A leading authority on the distinction between preparation and attempt, repeatedly followed and discussed alongside R. v. State of Maharashtra (Mohd. Yakub) and Sudhir Kumar Mukherjee. It establishes that Section 511 has a wider sweep than English law and does not require the penultimate act, and that 'property' under cheating includes documents of non-pecuniary but real value. The principle is unchanged under the new code: the general attempt provision is now Section 62 BNS (replacing Section 511 IPC) and cheating is now Section 318 BNS (replacing Sections 415/420 IPC), so the case continues to govern attempt jurisprudence under the BNS, 2023.

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