IMPORTANT POINT
Mere acquaintance or friendship of witness with deceased by itself could not be a reason to discard evidence of such eye witness.

JUDGMENT

K.G. Balakrishnan, J.-These five appellants were found guilty of murder by the District and Sessions Judge, Varanasi, for having caused the death of one Shiv Shankar Singh. They preferred an appeal before the High Court of Allahabad. The appeal was dismissed and the conviction of the appellants under Section 302 read with Section 149 and under Section 323 read with Section 149 IPC was confirmed. The findings of the High Court are challenged before us.

2. Deceased Shiv Shankar Singh was a resident of Phoolpur village in the Varanasi district. On 11.10.1979, there was a Bharat Milap mela at Mangari Bazar. Deceased Shiv Shankar Singh had gone to witness the said mela . There, he met PW-1 Moti Chand. Moti Chand and Shiv Shankar Singh spent some time at the venue of the mela and during night they came to the house of the father-in-law of deceased Shiv Shankar Singh, which was very close to Mangari Bazar. On the next day, i.e. 12.10.1979, at about 8.00 A.M., both Moti Chand and Shiv Shankar Singh left the house on a motorcycle. Moti Chand was driving the motorcycle while deceased Shiv Shankar Singh pillion-riding the same. When they reached near the pumping house of one Bhaggan Singh @ Vibhuti Narain Singh, the appellant Bansh Narain Singh came all of a sudden and intercepted the motorcycle. Bansh Narain Singh shouted that Shiv Shankar Singh shall not be spared. The other appellants, who were hiding in the nearby Arhar field armed with Lathis fitted with iron rings, came out and assaulted Moti Chand who fell on the ground. Then they started assaulting Shiv Shankar Singh with Lathis . Shiv Shankar Singh sustained various injuries and died on the spot. Hearing the alarm raised by the injured, the other witnesses came there and the appellants fled the place immediately.

3. Injured Moti Chand proceeded to the nearby Phoolpur Police Station and gave the F.I. statement at about 9.45 A.M. on 12.10.1979. Moti Chand was sent for medical examination by the S.H.O., who then immediately proceeded to the scene of occurrence. He recorded the statements of Moti Chand and other witnesses, namely, Jagdish, Satya Narain, Rama Shankar Singh and Matter @ Raj Narain and Ram Murat. He held an inquest over the dead body and also prepared a scene mahzar and took custody of the motorcycle. Later, the dead body was sent for post mortem. On 15.10.1979, the Investigating Officer arrested the appellants and filed the final report.

4. The learned Sessions Judge as well as the High Court relied on the evidence of PW-1 Moti Chand and PW-2 Rama Shankar Singh and PW-6 Satya Narain Singh and convicted the appellants.

5. Learned counsel for the appellants challenged the findings of the Sessions Judge as well as the High Court on various grounds. It was submitted that the three eye witnesses on whom the courts placed reliance were all interested witnesses as they were close friends of deceased Shiv Shankar Singh. The learned counsel pointed out the various facts to indicate that these witnesses were very strong supporters of deceased Shiv Shankar Singh. It was argued that Moti Chand must have been a very close friend of the deceased as both of them had spent a lot of time together at the mela and later the deceased took Moti Chand to his father-in-law s house and both of them stayed in that house for the night. These facts, according to the counsel for the appellants, proved that Moti Chand was not an independent witness. It may be noticed that Moti Chand was an injured witness. According to the prosecution, deceased and Moti Chand travelled on a motorcycle and the same was recovered from the place of the incident by the Investigating Officer, who prepared a mahzar immediately after the incident. Moreover, Moti Chand gave the F.I. statement within hours after the incident. Therefore, the presence of Moti Chand at the place of incident cannot be doubted. Mere acquaintance or friendship of Moti Chand with the deceased by itself cannot be treated as a