Judgment

JAGANMOHAN REDDY J.:- Eight accused were charged by the Additional Sessions Judge, Gurdaspur, of offiences of murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, theft etc. in respect of an incident which took place on June 9, 1968 at about 9 P.M. in the village of Sathiali, Tarlok Singh accused-1, Avtar Singh accused-4, Upar Singh accused-5, are brothers,Gurdial Singh accused-6 is their relation, Ajit Singh accused-2, Dilbagh Rai accused-7 and Saudagar Singh accused-8 are said to be drinking friends of the accused. Daljit Kaur accused-3 is the wife of Manjit Pal Singh s/o the village Pradhan Harcharan Singh P.W.9. The prosecution case against the accused is that Daljit Kaur who is married to Manjit Pal Singh did not want to live in the house of her father-in-law and her husband, because according to her the father-in-law had an evil eye on her and she wanted to go away to her sister s place. According to the prosecution, Harcharan Singh who is said to be aged 90 years had three sons, two of them withwhom he did not have good relationship lived separately from him at Amritsar and Batala, while Manjit Pal Singh was living with him. Tarlok Singh accused-1 and his brothers were related to Daljit Kaur and were constant visitors to her house. Harcharan Singh suspected that these three accused had illicit relations with his daughter-in-law and this was not liked by Harcharan Singh. As a consequence relations between the parties were strained. Earlier, on the day of the incident at about 2 P.M. it is alleged that Accused 2, 5 and 7 came to the house of Harcharan Singh in a drunken state and started abusing the servants of Harcharan Singh which was objected to. They also abused Harcharan Singh. While this was going on Labh Singh, Bharat Singh P.W. 6 and Rattan Singh P.W.5 intervened, and the three accused were pushed out or persuaded to go away. On the same day at about 9 P.M. all the seven accused A1, A2, A4 to A8 came back to the village with a tractor and parked it in the Haveli of Dilbagh Rai A-7 which was near the house of Harcharan Singh. Then all of them went to the house of Harcharan Singh. At that time Tarlok Singh A-1 had a licensed double-barrel shot gun, Avtar Singh A-4 had a licensed pistol, Ajit Singh A-2 and Gurdial Singh A-6 were each armed with a Kirpan. The remaining accused had a dang each. On reaching the house of Harcharan Singh, Tarlok Singh A-1 is said to have fired three shots in the air from his gun to frighten the inmates. Immediately thereafter Daljit Kaur A-3 who is alleged to have come out of her room asked the accused to finish Harcharan Singh whereupon he was manhandled and received simple injuries. The accused then demanded valuables from Harcharan Singh and took away a steel box containing gold ornaments weighing about 25 tolas. Daljit Kaur also took out her box containing her belongings and followed the accused who forced Harcharan Singh to proceed before them. All the accused while going to the house of Dilbagh Rai began to hurl abuses on all and sundry. On reaching the tractor, Daljit Kaur got into the tractor and the boxes were placed in it. Avtar Singh A-4 drove the tractor and other accused followed the tractor. As they reached the Chowk near the house of Kartar Singh and Khazan Singh, Ajit Singh deceased, Bhagat Singh PW 6, Karam Singh PW 2, Virsa Singh PW 3, Rattan Singh PW 5 and Bahadur Singh PW 4 who were present at the Chowk asked the accused why they were abusing the villagers in general. On being so questioned the other accused asked Tarlok Singh A-1 why he was waiting and why he was not firing. Immediately thereafter Tarlok Singh fired three shots from his gun. The first shot hit Ajit Singh and he fell down. The other shots hit Virsa Singh PW 3 and Karam Singh PW 2. Immediately the accused picked up the injured Ajit Singh and it is said that Ajit Singh A-2 who was armed with Kirpan gave three Kirpan blows to the injured Ajit Singh. The injured Ajit Singh was then lifted and carried by the accu