S.363 punishes the act of kidnapping and S.364 punishes the offence of kidnapping and abduction of a person in order to murder him- S. 364 A further adds to the gravity of the offence by involving an instance of coercive violence or substantial threat there of ,to make a demand for ransom.

Conviction recorded u/s 364A challenged by claiming substantial improvement in the statement of victim before the court,which indicated absence of requisite ingredients attracting S.364-A

Considering victims statement made before the police and the Court, three crucial changes were found, firstly a change regarding the exact timing of the threat, secondly the specificity of the delivery of threat to kill and thirdly, omissions of the intent behind the threat i.e to prevent the victim from crying out.

These details,held crucial to prove the second ingredient of the charge u/s 364-A and essential to bring home guilt under this section threat resulting in giving rise to a reasonable apprehension that such person may be put to death or hurt ,Hence this ingredients have not been proved beyond reasonable doubt, the Court below, held had not throughly addressed this doubt before convicting the appellant u/s 364A , particularly when for proving the ingredients of threat, the intimidation of the child Victim, for the purpose of making him silent, could not be enough.

Further if sentence carrying a maximum sentence of death and a minimum sentence of life sentence has such a low evedentiary threshold, the difference between punishment for kidnapping u/s 363,364 and 364A shall become mining less making the sentence u/s 364A not maintainable and set aside

Further, considering S 216(1) Crpc ,for recording proper conviction u/s 363, the Court, held empowered to alter or add charges even after the completion of evidence, argument and reserving of the judgement likely to cause prejudice to the accused by addition of alteration of charges