The Supreme Court (SC), while dealing with the issue of whether an offence under Section 302 IPC could be reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder since the accused had no intention to kill the deceased, has held that the ‘Doctrine of Transfer of Malice’ applies in such cases, which provides that where there is ‘mens rea’ of committing an offence it can be transferred to another. The SC noted that the intention to kill some other person is immaterial as the accused had the intention of committing the offence, though accidently he might have killed another person.
