Crl.A. No. 000063 / 2011

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Where an accused attacks a victim with a wooden log causing fatal head injuries, but the High Court itself records that the act was not done with intention to cause death, conviction under Section 302 IPC is unsustainable; the offence properly falls under Section 304 Part II IPC, which requires only knowledge that the act was likely to cause death, not intention. As tracked in criminal appeals on casestatus.in, the distinction between culpable homicide amounting to murder and culpable homicide not amounting to murder turns critically on this mens rea threshold under the IPC.