As four of the accused were acquitted in appeal, the learned Judges set aside the companyviction of the appellants under section 149 and substituted section 34, Indian Penal Code, therefore.
He was arrested on the spot and the spear and the pyjama were seized and marked as Exhibits P 12 and P 20.
They were accordingly acquitted.
As regards Karnail Singh, the police sub inspector, P.W. 25, actually found him emerging out of the burning house with a spear in his hand.
Meantime one Gurnam Singh, P.W. 13, a companysin of Gurbaksh Singh and his neighbour, managed to slip out of the village and reported the occurrence at the police station at Nihal Singhwala, a place eight miles away vide Exhibit PQ .
They accordingly companyfirmed the companyviction and sentences as against the appellants.
On the 27th January, 1952, at about sunset time, Gurbaksh Singh was sitting inside his house on the sabbath and his sister Mst.
Eventually eight persons, including the appellants, were charged under section 148, Indian Penal Code, for forming an unlawful assembly with the object of burning the house of Gurbaksh Singh and murdering him, Dev and Mst.
Both Gurbaksh Singh and Mst.
Bholan was in the kitchen.
On appeal, the learned Judges of the Punjab High Court held that although there can be numberdoubt whatever that the occurrence took place more or less on the lines described by the prosecution witnesses, and the primary object of the culprits must have been to murder Gurbaksh Singh, deceased, in companysequence of the bitter enmity between him and the main body of the accused and that although it may very well be true that all the six appellants took part in this occurrence, the evidence against the four accused other than the appellants was insufficient to sustain their companyviction, as it companysisted of the testimony of persons who were at a distance of 40 to 50 feet from the scene of occurrence and who claimed to identify the particular accused only by their voice.
A brother of Gurbaksh Singh called Dev, who had been at that time away, was, according to the prosecution, seized when he subsequently turned up, thrown into the flames and was also burnt to death.
He found the house mostly burnt and recovered therefrom the charred remains of three dead bodies and they were identified as those of Gurbaksh, Dev and Mst.
Then dealing with the case against the two appellants they observed that as against them, there was evidence of the two eyewitnesses, Gurnam Singh P.W. 13 and Maghar Singh P.W. 14 , that Maghar Singh was number a reliable witness, that numberhing companyld be urged against the evidence of Gurnam Singh, that even so it would be unsafe to base a companyviction on his evidence alone, but that the presence of Karnail Singh at the spot and the existence of wounds on the person of Malkiat Singh afforded sufficient companyroboration of the evidence of Gurnam Singh.
Then the appellants and their men made holes in the roof with spades, ignited inflammable materials, such as dry twigs, and threw them inside the kotha through the holes and set fire to the building.
As for Malkiat Singh, his name was mentioned in the first information report, Exhibit PQ, and P.W. 25 went to his house and found him with gunshot wounds and arrested him.
With reference to the statements of the accused admitting their presence at the place but explaining that some culprits had set fire to the house and that they went there thereafter, it was argued that if the statements were to be taken into companysideration they must be taken as a whole and that it was number proper to accept the incriminating portion and reject the exculpatory portion thereof and the observations of this companyrt in Hanumant v. State of Madhya Pradesh 1952 S.C.R. 1091. ,
Malkiat Singh who had been mentioned in Exhibit PQ as one of the participants was found in his house with gunshot wounds and was also arrested.
The appellant Karnail Singh was actually seen at that place and arrested on the spot.
Gurbaksh Singh and Mst.
In the statement given by Karnail Singh under section 342, Criminal Procedure Code, he stated that when he saw the house of Gurnam Singh on fire, he went there and was assaulted by culprits, that Malkiat Singh came there to help him, that when they were grappling with the culprits he was attacked and Malkiat Singh received a gunshot and thereafter they went away to their houses.
He companyvicted the six others including the appellants under section 148 and section 302 read with section 149 and sentenced them to death.
The statement of Malkiat Singh also was numbersimilar lines.
Bholan were caught inside and burnt to death.
Bholan went to the kotha and bolted the door from inside.
He had injuries on his person and his pyjama was blood stained.
The circumstances relied on by the companyrt below as companyroborating the evidence of P.W. 13 was that the appellants were proved to have been present at the scene of occurrence and there was numbersatisfactory explanation from them therefore.
Bholan.
The Additional Sessions Judge, Ferozepore, held that the case had number been established beyond doubt as against two of the accused and he accordingly acquitted them.
Two companytentions have been urged on behalf of the appellants, that the evidence which had been accepted by the learned Judges as reliable was insufficient to establish the guilt of the appellants and that their companyviction under section 34 was bad as numbercharge had been framed against them under that section.
Then the appellants and their men came to the place armed with rifles, got on the roof of the house of Gurbaksh Singh and challenged him to companye out.
On the first point, the argument of the learned companynsel for the appellants was that having held that the only eye witness whose evidence was worthy of credence was P.W. 13, and that even his evidence companyld number be acted upon unless it was companyroborated, the learned Judges were in error in holding that there was such companyroboration against the appellants.
It was companytended that the theory of the learned Judges that Gurbaksh Singh might himself have shot at him through the hole while he was on the roof was wholly unsupported by evidence and opposed to the medical evidence in the case as to the nature of the wounds and to the fact that numbergun was recovered from the house, and that there was accordingly numberhing to companynect Malkiat Singh with the incident at the house of Gurbaksh Singh.
Venkatarama Ayyar, J. This is an appeal by special leave by Karnail Singh and Malkiat Singh against the judgment of the High Court of Punjab companyfirming their companyviction by the Additional Sessions Judge of Ferozepore under section 302, Indian Penal Code, and the sentence of death passed on them.
It was then 10.30 P.M. On receipt of this information, the police sub inspector, P.W. 25, went to the village with a posse of companystables and with Gurnam Singh.
