Judgement

VENKATARAMA AYYAR, J. : The appellants were charged before the Additional Sessions Judge, Darbhanga under S. 302 read with S. 34 of the Penal Code for the murder of one Balbhadra Narain Singh. They were also charged, some under S. 147 and the others under S. 148 for being members of an unlawful assembly and for rioting.

2. The case of the prosecution was as follows : The deceased and the appellants were pattidars in the village of Mahe, and there was ill-feeling between them on account of the village pattidari. On 5-3-1951, at about 10 a. m. the deceased was returning from the river to his baithka . On the way the appellants who were armed with bhalas, sword and lathi, and some others surrounded him at the courtyard of the village school and attacked him. One Harischandra Singh, who is still absconding, plunged his bhala into the abdomen of the deceased and the appellants joined in the attack on him. The deceased ran to his baithka and from there, he was taken to the police station at Singhia. There he made a complaint which has been filed as the first information report, and therein he set out the incidents mentioned above, and implicated the appellants as concerned in