Judgment

MITTER, J.:- In this appeal by special leave from a judgment of the Gujarat High Court the point canvassed before us was that inasmuch as the High Court found itself unable to rely fully on the evidence of six of the main prosecution witnesses with regard to at least two of the appellants before it in view of the evidence as to alibi, it had gone wrong in accepting the evidence with regard to the appellants before us and upholding their conviction.

2. The relevant facts for the disposal of the appeal may be stated as follows. The village of Nani Naroli in the District of Surat has a population of roughly 3,500 The Bhora community to which the appellants belong command a majority thereof. The other community which has any strength is that of the Maleka commanding a population of about 1,000. Both these communities are Muslim. Besides these two there is a small population of other people composed of Hindus and Vasavas. There was a good deal of hostility between Bhoras and the Maleks mainly engendered as a result of the Gram Panchayat elections in the middle of the year l967 whereat the Bhoras carried the day, and the original accused No. 1 and one Lalji were elected as Sarpanc