Judgment

FAZAL ALI, J. :- The appellant has been convicted under S. 324, I. P. C. to one years rigorous imprisonment as modified by the High Court. It appears that on the date of occurrence namely, 25th August 1974, Bishan the deceased was assaulted by a knife and the appellant was seen running away by a crowd collected, and so the members of the crowd including the members of police arrested him and snatched a knife from his hand which contained no bloodstains. The High Court appears to have relied on the following three circumstances :

(i) that the appellant was seen by the three witnesses with a chhuri in his hand;

(ii) that he was waiving the chhuri at that time and the witnesses warded off some of the blows with the dandas which they had; and

(iii) that the appellant was caught and taken to the police station.

2. Even if we take these circumstances at their face value they do not exclude the possibility of innocence of the accused. There was no eye-witness to prove that the appellant had inflicted any knife blow on Bishan, and in the absence of such evidence coupled with the fact that the knife which was snatched from the appellant did not contain any bloodstains, it cannot be held