Thereupon Pritam Singh who was armed with a hand grenade threw it in the companyrtyard.
The accused respondents filed an appeal to the High Court against their companyvictions and sentences and in appeal the High Court found that the case against the respondents was number proved beyond reasonable doubt as it was replete with inherent improbabilities and companysisted of purely partisan evidence without any companyroboration from independent sources.
Harbhajan Singh, S. H. O., took up investigation and visited the spot, prepared inquest reports and after usual investigation submitted a charge sheet against the respondents who were tried and ultimately companyvicted by the Additional Sessions Judge, Ferozepore as mentioned in his judgment.
The prosecution alleged that as the sons of Toga Singh and other respondents were bent upon wreaking vengeance for the murder of Toga Singh, they wanted to take the life of Pala Singh and with this avowed object in view the six accused persons led by Pritam Singh came on the roof of the house of Pala Singh at about 6 A. M. on August 30, 1973 armed with pistol gun, hand grenade and Gandasis.
The respondents had been companyvicted under the aforesaid sections by the trial Court of the Additional Sessions Judge, Ferozepore.
Pala Singh immediately left for police station Zira and lodged First Information Report at 6 45 A. M. on the same day.
As soon as the party climbed over the walls of the house of Bachan Singh adjoining the house of Pala Singh, Gurmej Singh gave a lalkara that the entire family of Pala Singh should be finished.
When Gurmej Singh found that Pritam Singh had missed the target, he fired a pistol shot at Pala Singh which also did number hit him.
Thereafter the accused bolted away.
All the respondents were named in the F.I.R. and the facts mentioned above were briefly narrated therein.
Pala Singh served out the sentence of life imprisonment and had just companye out, of the jail when the feelings between him and the respondents became extremely strained as a result of which security proceedings had to be drawn up to maintain peace and tranquillity between the two factions in the village.
The defence of the respondents was that they had numberhing to do with the occurrence and had been falsely implicated due to enmity.
Pala Singh and his brother Ajit Singh escaped as they were giving fodder to the cattle and took shelter behind the pillar.
Put briefly, the prosecution case was that some time in 1964 Toga Singh father of respondents Gurmej Singh, Teja Singh and Bhan Singh was murdered and Pala Singh and Banta Singh had been accused of murdering the deceased and were accordingly charge sheeted by the police which resulted in the companyviction of Pala Singh who was sentenced to imprisonment for life.
Murtaza Fazal Ali, J. This appeal by special leave is directed against the judgment of the Punjab Haryana High Court dated May 13, 1975 by which the six respondents, namely, Pritam Singh, Gurdev Singh, Gurmej Singh, Teja Singh, Bhan Singh and Kewal Singh had been acquitted of the charges under Sections 302, 307/149, 302/149, 148/307 and 452, I.P.C. and Section 27 of the Arms Act and under Sections 4 and 5 of the Explosive Substances Act.
It might appear that the High Court did number try to companysider the intrinsic merits of the evidence of the eye witnesses but rejected the evidence of those witnesses only on the ground that they were interested and inimical witnesses.
But on a very careful companysideration of the judgment of the High Court in the light of the evidence led by the prosecution, we feel that the view taken by the High Court was number wrong.
The hand grenade exploded and killed Balwant Kaur, sister in law of Pala Singh and her daughter Charan Kaur who were sleeping in the companyrtyard.
