Karnataka HC Transfers Investigation to CID After Police Ignored Attempt-to-Rape Charge Despite Victim's Section 164 Statement
The Karnataka High Court found the police confined the charge solely to attempt to murder, overlooking graphic allegations of attempted rape narrated under Section 164 of the Cr.P.C., and ordered the Crime Investigation Department to reinvestigate within three months.
A victim who was stabbed multiple times, subjected to alleged sexual assault and left bleeding on a roadside in the early hours of 21 August 2022 approached the Karnataka High Court after the police filed a charge sheet for the sole offence of attempt to murder under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code — with no charge under Section 376 read with Section 511 of the IPC. Justice M. Nagaprasanna, sitting singly at Bengaluru, allowed the writ petition on 29 July 2026, found the investigation prima facie incomplete, and directed the State to entrust further investigation to the Crime Investigation Department (CID). The court held that a victim's Section 164 Cr.P.C. statement narrating a sustained attempt to commit rape could not have been reduced, at the investigation stage, to nothing more than an attempt to murder.
The Night of 20–21 August 2022 and the Investigation That Followed
The petitioner and the accused, Kashish Gupta, were colleagues who lived in the same apartment complex. On the evening of 20 August 2022, both attended an office party at Marathahalli. Around 1.30 a.m. on 21 August 2022, when the petitioner sought to return home, the accused offered to drop her. Instead of proceeding to her residence, the accused drove to a desolate stretch on the pretext of buying cigarettes.
What the petitioner narrated in her Section 164 statement before the Civil Judge and JMFC, Hoskote, on 3 September 2022 was detailed and graphic. She stated that the accused demanded sexual intercourse, touched her forcibly, attempted to remove her clothing, dragged her face toward his private part, declared he would either have sex with her or kill her, stabbed her multiple times on the chest, abdomen and legs, bit her on various parts of the body, inflicted burn injuries on her thighs with a lighted cigarette, throttled her, and attempted to sit on her back and penetrate her. She managed to escape only because she resisted continuously and, bleeding profusely, boarded a cab to Manipal Hospital. She was admitted in a critical condition and spent six days in the Intensive Care Unit.
Manipal Hospital issued a Medico Legal Certificate on 16 September 2022 recording that the lungs had ruptured and stab wounds were found on the thighs, abdomen and below the breast. Despite this, and despite the Section 164 statement, the police registered Crime No.122 of 2022 under Section 307 IPC alone and filed a charge sheet for that offence only. The matter was committed to the Court of Session, which registered S.C. No.11 of 2023 and framed a charge solely for the offence under Section 307 IPC.
Procedural Route to the High Court
After charges were framed, the petitioner made a requisition dated 3 July 2025 to the Station House Officer, Thirumalashettahalli Police Station, Bengaluru Rural, seeking further investigation under Section 173(8) Cr.P.C. The requisition catalogued specific lapses: failure to register offences under Section 376 read with Section 511 IPC; non-inclusion of medical records from Manipal Hospital; omission of FSL reports on seized items including the knife; failure to medically examine the victim for sexual assault under Section 164-A Cr.P.C.; non-examination of two unnamed eyewitnesses near the crime scene; failure to trace the Ola cab driver who witnessed the accused trying to board the vehicle; non-seizure of the car despite blood stains on its window panes; and non-forwarding of a yellow plastic cover allegedly used to conceal the knife to the Forensic Science Laboratory.
When the police did not act on the requisition and the trial was about to proceed, the petitioner filed Writ Petition No.22291 of 2025 before the Karnataka High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution read with Section 482 Cr.P.C. A coordinate bench of the court had on 3 September 2025 stayed further proceedings in S.C. No.11/2023 before the VI Additional Principal District and Sessions Judge, Bengaluru Rural, observing that the prosecution had not yet secured the FSL report and that commencing trial at that stage would seriously prejudice the victim's interests. That stay remained in force when the present judgment was pronounced.
Why the Court Found the Investigation Structurally Deficient
Justice Nagaprasanna began by reproducing the petitioner's statement recorded under Section 164 Cr.P.C. in full, noting it was “neither vague nor embellished” but “vivid, spontaneous and graphically chronicles every stage of the occurrence.” The court observed that the statement, on its plain reading, prima facie disclosed the ingredients of an attempt to commit rape, yet appeared to have escaped the attention of both the investigating agency and the Sessions Court.
The court found that the investigating agency had perceived the stab wounds but overlooked the conduct that preceded them. It had noticed the injuries on the body but failed to examine whether those injuries were inflicted in the course of an attempt to commit a far graver offence. The clothes and shoes of the accused had allegedly disappeared the very next day. The yellow plastic cover used to conceal the knife was not sent to the FSL. No biological samples or blood swabs were collected from inside the car despite visible blood stains on the window panes and despite the allegation that the entire occurrence had taken place inside the vehicle.
The court characterised these omissions as “investigative lapses of considerable magnitude, capable of impairing the search for truth itself,” distinguishing them from mere procedural irregularities.
The Legal Question: Preparation or Attempt to Rape?
The court framed the core legal issue narrowly: whether the acts attributed to the accused depicted an assault culminating in attempt to murder alone, or whether they crossed into the domain of an attempt to commit rape punishable under Section 376 read with Section 511 IPC.
To answer this, the court examined Section 511 IPC and the jurisprudence on the distinction between preparation and attempt. It relied on three Supreme Court decisions. In Chaitu Lal v. State of Uttarakhand, (2019) 20 SCC 272, the Apex Court held that an attempt begins the moment the accused commences acts with the requisite criminal intention and that, to constitute an attempt to commit rape, it is not necessary that every conceivable overt act towards penetration should have taken place. What is required is that the conduct must unmistakably exhibit a determination to gratify the accused's sexual desire notwithstanding any resistance by the victim.
In State of Madhya Pradesh v. Mahendra, (2022) 12 SCC 442, the Supreme Court reiterated that every offence ordinarily passes through three stages — intention, preparation and attempt — and that attempt is the direct movement towards commission of the offence after preparation has ceased. Whether a particular act constitutes preparation or attempt is a mixed question of fact and law to be gathered from the conduct of the accused and the surrounding circumstances.
The court then tested the petitioner's allegations against these principles. The accused had repeatedly demanded sexual intercourse, forcibly touched her, attempted to remove clothing, dragged her face toward his private parts, declared he would kill her if she did not comply, continued assaulting her despite her resistance, and persisted until she escaped. Justice Nagaprasanna held that these allegations, taken at face value as they necessarily must be at the investigation stage, “unmistakably depict a sustained and determined attempt to subject the victim to sexual intercourse against her will” and were not mere indicators of preparation.
Power to Direct Further Investigation After Framing of Charges
The State's position was that the investigation had been conducted in accordance with what the statement disclosed and that the trial was in progress, making further investigation unwarranted. The court rejected this, holding that once glaring omissions capable of resulting in a miscarriage of justice were identified, the consequential question was not whether further investigation should be directed but who should conduct it.
The court drew on Anant Thakur Karmuse v. State of Maharashtra, (2023) 5 SCC 802, where the Supreme Court held that constitutional courts may order further investigation, reinvestigation, or de novo investigation even after the charge sheet is filed and charges are framed, and that neither the filing of the final report nor the framing of charges can operate as an impregnable barrier where the ends of justice so demand. The Apex Court had warned in that judgment that allowing charges to operate as a bar to further investigation would give accused persons an incentive to ensure charges are framed quickly in order to foreclose a fair inquiry.
The court also relied on Devendra Nath Singh v. State of Bihar, (2023) 1 SCC 48, which affirmed that under Section 482 Cr.P.C. or Article 226 of the Constitution, a High Court may direct further investigation or even reinvestigation if the investigation is not proceeding in the proper direction, and that this power, though to be exercised sparingly and with circumspection, is available in exceptional cases. The court noted that the right to a fair investigation is not merely a statutory entitlement but flows directly from Article 21 of the Constitution.
Why the CID and Not the Original Investigating Officer
Justice Nagaprasanna held that entrusting further investigation to the same investigating machinery that had conducted the earlier inquiry would not serve the ends of justice. The court noted that the State Government Pleader had not opposed a direction for further investigation and had in fact stated that if the court directed it, the police would accomplish the act of further investigation. Even so, the court found that the omissions were of such gravity that independence from the earlier investigating officer was essential.
The court accordingly directed that the further investigation be entrusted to the Crime Investigation Department of the State, so that the investigation could be carried to its logical culmination in an independent, comprehensive and impartial manner before the Sessions Court proceeded further with the trial.
Order
The writ petition was allowed. The court issued a writ of mandamus directing the State to entrust further investigation in Crime No.122 of 2022 (S.C. No.11 of 2023) to the Crime Investigation Department. The CID is directed to submit its report before the concerned court within an outer limit of three months from the date of entrustment. The entrustment itself must occur within fifteen days from the date of receipt of a copy of the order. The concerned Sessions Court — the VI Additional Principal District and Sessions Judge, Bengaluru Rural — is directed not to proceed with the trial until the CID submits its report, and to regulate procedure thereafter based on that report and in accordance with law.