Judgment

SIKRL, J: - Fifteen persons were tried by the learned Sessions Judge, Visakhapatnam, on various charges under Sections 120-B, 148, 147, 447 302 read with 34, 302 read with 149, and 302. He acquitted accused Nos. 6, 13, 14 and 15 and convicted the Other accused under various sections. The High Court, on appeal, acquitted accused No. 12. Accused Nos. 2 and 8 have been released by the Government and accused No. 7 has recently died. We are left with the appeals of accused Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10 and 11.

2. It was the case of the prosecution that at the time of the occurrence accused. No. 1 was armed with a single barrel gun, accused No.3 with a double barrel gun and accused No. 4 also with a double barrel gun, and the rest of the accused were armed with sticks etc. Out of the 15 original accused accused Nos. 1, 3,5 and 6 were residents of Chowduvada, accused No. 4 was resident of Pina Vemali and accused No. 7 was resident of Dwarapudi Accused Nos. 8 and 15 were from Rajam Bheemavaram and accused Nos. 9 to13 were from Sivarampuram and accused No. 14 was from Chodavaram.

3. The case of the prosecution, in brief, was that those accused formed into an unlawful assembly and in order to take forcible possession of the casuaria tope belonging to Shaik Abdul Kareem Saheb, called Ramannadhora beedu, went to the land and caused the death of the said Kareem Saheb and 8 others, in pursuance of the conspiracy. Apart from causing the death of 9 persons they also caused various injuries to some other persons. It was further the case of the prosecution that Kareem Saheb having purchased Ramannadhora beedu under Ex. P6, sale deed dated May 2, 1957, from P. W. 23, had raised the casuarina tope therein about eight years ago: that the western boundary of this land was Ramamurti Raju s tope that Saheb s coolies had planted the casuarina tope till the old tope; of Ramamurti Raju on the west; that this tope in Ramannadhora beedu was younger than the Ramamurti Raju s by 2 or 3 years and that these two topes could be distinguished from one another as Saheb s tope was planted in regular rows while the tope of Ramamurti Raju was planted in a zog zag manner, the latter being older that the former. It was the further case of the prosecution that Saheb had been in possession and enjoyment of this tope by getting its branches cut and the dead trees removed and sold away.

4. The case of the defence was that Abdul Kareem Saheb was in unlawful possession of the tope and the land on which trees or casuarina existed belonged to accused No. 1, and that they were entitled to the right of private defence.

5. The learned Sessions Judge came to the conclusion that he was not concerned with the question of title of the land, and that there was abundant oral evidence to prove the possession of Kareem Saheb, and further there was no evidence to prove that accused No. 1 and his family were in possession of the disputed tope. The learned Sessions Judge relied on the evidence of a number of witnesses and also relied on the local inspection which he made. He observed in his judgment:

"At the time of local inspection, it was clearly visible that the disputed tope was planted in regular rows while the tope to its west, stated to be that of Ramamurti Raju, was not planted in such rows but those trees were planted in a zig zag way, from which it is clear that those topes must either belong to different persons or they must have been planted at different times by different persons. Moreover, the age of Ramamurti Raju s tope seems to be older, as the trees are higher that those in the disputed tope and the girth of the trees also is more than the trees in the disputed tope. The physical features of these two different topes probabilities the prosecution case that the disputed tope belongs to Saheb and it is younger than its western tope of Ramamurti Raja and they are planted in different ways.

He repelled the argument of the defence that the witnesses who had spoken on the questio