Indian Penal Code, 1860
Section 301
repealedCulpable homicide by causing death of person other than person whose death was intended
If a person, by doing anything which he intends or knows to be likely to cause death, commits culpable homicide by causing the death of any person, whose death he neither intends nor knows himself to be likely to cause, the culpable homicide committed by the offender is of the description of which it would have been if he had caused the death of the person whose death he intended or knew himself to he likely to cause.
Why this exists
This section applies the doctrine of 'transferred intent' or 'transferred malice' to homicide: it prevents a person from escaping the full weight of the law simply because their aim, plan, or expectation went wrong and hit an unintended victim. The offender's guilt is measured by what they intended toward the original target, not reduced just because fate directed the fatal blow elsewhere. Under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, this offence continues under a renumbered section.