After 32 Years, Orissa HC Cuts First Offender’s Attempt-To-Murder Conviction To Grievous Hurt, Grants 1-Year Probation For Knife Attack

On 16 March 1994, the appellant allegedly stabbed Ramakanta Sahu three times following a dispute concerning a case instituted against the appellant’s father.

The injured’s daughters witnessed the assault and one intervened; medical evidence recorded three sharp-weapon injuries, including one described as dangerous and potentially fatal if untreated

The Sessions Court convicted the appellant under Section 307 IPC and sentenced him to three years’ rigorous imprisonment.

Section 307 IPC requires proof that the accused acted with such intention or knowledge, and in such circumstances, that if death had resulted the act would have amounted to murder; the weapon, location and nature of injuries, number of blows, and surrounding circumstances are relevant to that determination.

Section 325 IPC applies where grievous hurt, as defined in Section 320 IPC, is voluntarily caused.

Under Section 4 of the Probation of Offenders Act, a court must consider probation where its statutory conditions are met, though release is not an entitlement; if probation is refused, reasons should be recorded. Section 361 CrPC requires special reasons where a court could have applied the Probation Act but does not do so. The Court relied on Chellammal and Another v. State represented by the Inspector of Police, 2025 INSC 540, for these principles.

Section 5 of the Probation Act empowers the court to order reasonable compensation for loss or injury when releasing an offender under Section 4.

The injured witness’s account was corroborated by his daughters and the medical evidence, and the witnesses’ relationship to the injured did not, without material contradiction, make their testimony unreliable.

The Court nevertheless concluded that the evidence did not sustain Section 307 IPC: although three blows were inflicted, two injuries were described as simple and one as dangerous, and the alleged knife was not recovered; the medical and investigative omissions were relevant to determining the precise offence.

It found a deliberate assault causing serious bodily injury and altered the conviction to Section 325 IPC, subject to the requirement that the injury proved fall within Section 320 IPC.

On sentence, the Court considered the appellant’s age at the time, the absence of a prior conviction on the record, the passage of more than three decades, and the statutory duty to consider probation.

Instead of imprisonment, the appellant was released on probation under Section 4 of the Probation of Offenders Act for one year, on executing a bond of Rs. 5,000 with one surety, to keep the peace and be of good behaviour, under the supervision of the Probation Officer.

He was also directed to pay Rs. 25,000 compensation to the injured within one month under Section 5 of the Act.