A crime can be defined as the violation of criminal law, committed without any defense or

justification, and sanctioned by the state as a felony or misdemeanor. Crime happens

intentionally, (that might be premeditated or at the spur of moment) thus there is a full-
fledged process behind it. That process termed as a stages of crime.1

What is mean by Violation of criminal law? The main concern of criminal law is to protect
and preserve certain fundamental social values or to maintain social control. Due to this
underlying principle, the IPC prescribes a set of norms of human behavior and forbids the
human conduct that inexcusably disrespect, inflict, or threatens substantial harm to individual
and to their rights and fundamental freedoms.

(Social control can be defined as a organized action intended to maintain social order, an
arrangement of practices and behaviors on which society’s members base their daily lives.)

Definition of crime:

In Halsbury’s Laws of England, crime is defined as follows: ‘A crime is an unlawful act or

default which is an offence against the public and renders the person guilty of the act or
default liable to legal punishment’.2

There are many definitions of crime from great scholars like Blackstone, Bentham, Sergeant
Stephen, John Gillin, John Austin and many more. But it is difficult to have a complete
definition of ‘crime’ that embraces acts and omissions which are criminal in nature and that
excludes all those acts and omissions that are not. An act or omission, no matter what the
degree of immorality, reprehensibility, or indecency, does not amount to a crime unless it is
prohibited by penal law. there isn’t a determinate checklist of criteria for either identifying or
defining the concept of ‘crime’ in universal terms.

A crime is committed either after premeditation or at the spur of moment. The commission of
crime by a person in the latter case, generally, travels through four distinct and successive
stages. They are: (i) the formation of the intention to commit it; (ii) the preparations for
commission of the contemplated crime; (iii the attempt to commit it, and (iv) if the third stage
is successful, the commission of the intended crime.

1
Rohit Sarkar, crime and stages in commission of a crime, Legal Sarcasm ( 13th April 2020), url
2
PSA Pillai, Criminal Law 8 ( K.I. Vibhute, 13th, lexis nexis 1956)
Generally, criminal law does not penalise the first two stages, viz, the stage of contemplation
or intention and the stage of preparation. Mere intention or contemplation to commit a crime
is beyond the purview of criminal law. It is impossible for anyone to be able to ‘look into the
breasts of criminals’ to ascertain and prove the evil intentions. It is even impossible for a
devil to know the thought of a man. Further, it is always possible for the person to give up his
evil intentions or designs. It is based on these considerations that a principle of law has come
to be evolved, which makes only those intentions punishable that are accompanied by some
express words or an overt act aimed towards achieving the intention.

On similar grounds, the stage of preparation, which essentially involves devising or arranging
means or measures necessary for the commission of the contemplated crime, as a general
rule, is also not punishable. For, apart from the difficulty of establishing the intention, it
would be impossible in most cases, to establish that the preparation was actuated by an evil
intention, or that it was directed towards achieving a particular wrongful or illegal act. This is
because, it is quite possible that the person who originally had the intention to commit an
offence, may, before actually attempting to commit it, give up or desist from committing it,
either due to fear of the consequences or punishment, or even due to change of heart at the
last moment. There are also some practical reasons for not ordinarily punishing preparations
for committing an offence. As stated earlier, it is difficult to state with certainty that the
preparation was with the intention of committing the crime. For example, a person may have
bought some poison like arsenic, or a gun or gunpowder. When questioned, he could say that
he had bought them for killing wild animals or rats which destroyed his crops. Then again,
preparation does not by itself disturb the peace of the locality, threaten the sense of security,
or alarm the local residents by causing fear that the objects are bought for an
unlawful purpose. If preparations were to be made punishable, then there is every likelihood
that innocent people may be harassed and face unnecessary prosecution for the mere fact of
having bought weapons or poison. The third and the fourth stages, namely, attempt to commit
an offence, and the actual commission of the contemplated offence, which are respectively a
direct movement towards commission of the contemplated crime and the actual commission
of the crime, are always punishable. An attempt to commit a crime and the commission of a
crime are, thus, perceived as substantive offences.

Intention