JUDGMENT

Srinivasan, J.-The main contention of the appellants is that the High Court has chosen to reverse the order of acquittal passed by the trial judge when the latter is not perverse or wholly unreasonable. In support of the same the decision in Tota Singh & Anr. v. State of Punjab1 is cited. A Bench of two judges has held that in an appeal against acquittal, the jurisdiction of the appellate court is circumscribed by the limitation that no interference is to be made with the order unless the approach made by the lower court to the consideration of evidence is vitiated by some manifest illegality or the conclusion recorded by the court below is such which could not have been possibly arrived at by any court acting reasonably and judiciously and is liable therefore to be characterised as perverse. It has also been held that where two views are possible and the view taken by the court below is plausible, the appellate court cannot legally interfere with an order of acquittal even if it is of the opinion that the view taken by the trial court is erroneous.

2. The power of the appellant court in an appeal against an order of acquittal was the subject of a decision of three member Bench of this court as early as in Sanwat Singh & Others v. State of Rajasthan2. The Bench considered the matter in detail and said :-

"The foregoing discussion yields the following results : (1) an appellate court has full power to review the evidence upon which the order of acquittal is founded: (2) the principles laid down in Sheo Swarup s case, 61 Ind. App. 398 : (AIR 1934 PC 227 (2) ) afford a correct guide for the appellate court s approach to a case in disposing of such an appeal; and (3) the different phraseology used in the judgments of this Court, such as, (i) "substantial and compelling reasons", (ii) "good and sufficiently cogent reasons", and (iii) "strong reasons", are not intended to curtail the undoubted power of an appellate court in an appeal against acquittal to review the entire evidence and to come to its own conclusion; but in doing so it should not only consider every matter on record having a bearing on the questions of fact and the reasons given by the court below in support of its order of acquittal in its arriving at a conclusion on those facts, but should also express those reasons in its judgment, which lead it to hold that the acquittal was not justified".

3. In that case, the court also dealt with the scope of Articles 136 of the Constitution and pointed out that the practice of the court is not to interfere on questions of fact except in exceptional cases when the finding is such that it shocks the conscience of the court.

4. Recently this Bench had occasion to refer to the ruling in Betal Singh v. State of M.P3, and point out that the High Court has full powers in an appeal to review the entire evidence and come to its own conclusion unless the matter depended on the demeanour of the witness. (See judgment dated 9.12.1997 in Civil Appeal No. 888 of 1996, Rajendra Mahton v. State of Bihar).

5. Bearing the above principles in mind, we shall now consider the facts of the present case. The prosecution case was the following :

On 2.6.1987 after mid night the appellants entered the bed room in which Chand Mia, the deceased was sleeping with his wife Jamuna Khatun, the complainant and killed him by hacking him with ram dao and other dangerous weapons. When the complainant tried to save her husband, she suffered some injuries. She went to the police station situated at a distance of 4 kilo metres by walk and presented a complaint written with the help of PW 4, a petition-writer around 2.15 A.M. She had mentioned the names of the appellants in the F.I.R. She was sent to a dispensary near the police station for treatment for her injuries. After investigation, the appellants stood charged with offences under Sections 324/459/302/34 I.P.C.

6. The prosecution examined nine witnesses. The doctor who treated the complainant for her injur