56. The Apex court in Chunni Bai v. State of Chhattisgarh , 2025 SCC OnLine SC 955 has observed that one of the criteria to determine, in any given case, as to whether the act amounts to “murder” or “culpable homicide not amounting to murder,” is the presence or absence of intention of the offender. If the “intention” to cause death or to cause such bodily injury as is likely to cause death or the knowledge, which obviously has to be a conscious one, that it is so imminently dangerous that it must, in all probability, cause death or such bodily injury as is likely to cause death and commits such act “without any excuse” for incurring the risk of causing death or such injury, comes out loud and clear in the case, it would be most appropriate to categorise it as a case of “murder” under Section 300 IPC in which event, penal provision of Section 302 IPC would be attracted . On the other hand, if the “intention” in causing the death or to causing such bodily injury is not so clear, the case will fall under the less stringent category of “culpable homicide not amounting to murder” as punishable under Section 304 IPC.
