Section 62 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) is the general provision punishing attempts to commit offences - the residuary attempt section formerly known to every criminal lawyer as Section 511 of the Indian Penal Code. The official comparison table records it as renumbered with no change in substance when the BNS came into force on 1 July 2024.
What Section 62 BNS provides
Whoever attempts to commit an offence punishable with imprisonment for life or with imprisonment, or attempts to cause such an offence to be committed, and in such attempt does any act towards the commission of the offence, is punished - where the Sanhita makes no express provision for punishing that attempt - with imprisonment of any description provided for the offence for a term which may extend to one half of imprisonment for life or, as the case may be, one half of the longest term of imprisonment provided for that offence, or with such fine as is provided for the offence, or with both.
Three features follow from that wording:
- It is residuary. Section 62 applies only where no express provision punishes the attempt. Some grave offences carry their own specific attempt provisions elsewhere in the code, and those apply instead.
- The attempt takes the offence's own character. Per the First Schedule, an attempt is cognizable or non-cognizable, and bailable or non-bailable, according as the offence attempted is, and it is triable by the court by which the offence attempted is triable.
- The cap is half. The attempt can never be punished more heavily than one half of the maximum imprisonment prescribed for the completed offence.
When does preparation become an "attempt"?
The classical stages of a crime are intention, preparation, attempt and commission. Intention and preparation alone are generally not punishable; the attempt is. The line is drawn where the accused, having prepared, does an act towards the commission of the offence with the necessary intent. The act need not be the last act before the crime would be complete, but it must go beyond preparation and be proximately connected to the intended offence. Whether particular conduct crossed that line is intensely fact-specific, which is why attempt cases are argued so closely.
Leading Supreme Court judgments
- Abhayanand Mishra v. State of Bihar (1961) - an attempt begins once preparation is complete and the offender does an act towards the offence; the act need not be the penultimate one.
- State of Maharashtra v. Mohd. Yakub (1980) - the act must be proximate to the intended result; carrying silver to the shore for smuggling was held to be an attempt, not mere preparation.
What changed from Section 511 IPC
Nothing of substance. The provision was renumbered from 511 IPC to 62 BNS, and the official comparison table records "no change". The large body of case law on what separates preparation from attempt continues to apply. Note that the BNS itself ends at Section 358, so there is no "Section 511" in the new code - a charge citing the general attempt provision today is a Section 62 BNS charge.
Charged with an attempt, or advising on one? Attempt liability turns on fine factual distinctions between preparation and execution. Talk to a criminal lawyer in your city or browse advocates in the Free Law directory.