IMPORTANT POINT
Merely because a witness is related to prosecution party and inimical to accused his evidence cannot be discarded if same is otherwise trust worthy.

JUDGMENT

B.N. Agrawal, J.-All the eight respondents were convicted by the trial court under Sections 302/149 of the Penal Code and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life. Ayodhya Prasad (respondent No.2) was further convicted under Section 147 of the Penal Code and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of six months whereas the other respondents under Section 148 of the Penal Code and each one of them was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of one and half years. The sentences, however, were ordered to run concurrently. On appeals being preferred by the respondents, the High Court of Allahabad acquitted them of all the charges.

2. Prosecution case, in short, was that seven months prior to December, 1977, one Sant Saran, father of accused Santosh Kumar, was murdered in which Debi Shanker and Rakesh @ Chhotey, both sons of Devi Din Pandey were made accused in which case bail was granted to both the aforesaid accused persons which infuriated Santosh Kumar. On 20th December, 1977, in the morning, Sushil Kumar (PW 1) came to the house of his maternal grandfather Devi Din Pandey for borrowing oxen to get his plots ploughed and found that his maternal grandmother Smt. Gorha Devi (PW 4) and his maternal grandfather s brother, Promod Kumar (PW 3), were enjoying fire at the door of Devi Din Pandey whereas Devi Din and his two sons, namely, Debi Shanker and Rakesh @ Chhotey were cutting fodder and Vinod Kumar, elder brother of Promod Kumar (PW 3) was milching the cow. At 7.30 a.m., all the respondents, excepting Gur Bax, who were related to each other, came there armed with guns, country made pistols, farsa, barchhi and lathi. Upon arrival, Ayodhya Prasad (respondent No. 2) exhorted other accused person to kill the enemies, namely, Devi Din, Debi Shanker and Rakesh @ Chhotey. Respondent No. 5 - Santosh Kumar, son of Sant Saran, fired at Devi Din, respondent No. 1 - Sheo Sanehi fired at Debi Shanker and respondent No. 8 - Bhagwati fired at Rakesh from their respective guns whereas respondent No. 3 - Gur Bax fired at Debi Shanker. Respondent No. 4 - Santosh Kumar son of Govind Prasad fired at Rakesh from his country made pistol. Thereupon respondent No. 6 - Deo Narain assaulted Devi Din Pandey and Debi Shanker by farsa and respondent No. 7 - Ram Asray assaulted them with barchhi whereas respondent No. 2 - Ayodhya Prasad assaulted them with lathi. All the three injured persons, namely, Devi Din Pandey, Debi Shanker and Rakesh @ Chhotey fell down and succumbed to their injures on the spot. Upon halla being raised by Sushil Kumar (PW 1), villagers Asharfi, Babbu and Hira Lal came to the place of occurrence and when the accused persons were challenged, they went away giving out threats. Thereupon, Sushil Kumar (PW 1), after covering a distance of five miles, lodged the first information report on the same day at 11.30 a.m. at Ghatampur police station stating the aforesaid facts disclosing therein names of all the respondents.

3. Police after registering the case took up investigation and upon completion thereof submitted chargesheet, on receipt whereof the learned magistrate took cognizance and committed all the eight respondents to the court of Sessions to face trial.

4. Defence of the accused persons was that they were innocent, no occurrence, much less the occurrence alleged, had taken place and the three deceased persons were done to death in the dead of night and nobody had seen the occurrence, but the accused persons have been falsely roped in to feed fat the old grudge. Accused Sheo Sanehi and Santosh Kumar, son of Govind Prasad, took the plea of alibi.

5. During trial, the prosecution examined seven witnesses, out of whom, informant Sushil Kumar (PW 1), Promod Kumar (PW 3) and Smt. Gorha Devi (PW 4) claimed to be eyewitnesses of the alleged occurrence. Ram Shankar Shukla (PW 2) is the police officer who drew up the first information report, Ratan Singh (PW 5) is the investigating officer and Devi Pr