Judgment

FAZAL ALI, J.:- This is an appeal under Section 2 of the SC (Enlargement of Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction) Act, 1970 and is directed against the judgment of the Karnataka High Court dated 21/22-1-1975 setting aside the acquittal of accused Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 7 passed by the trial court, convicting them under Ss. 302/34, Indian Penal Code, and sentencing them to imprisonment for life.

2. The prosecution case has been set out in detail in the judgment of the High Court and that of the trial court and it is not necessary to repeat the same all over again. The occurrence which resulted in the death of Fakirappa Gulappa Shirgumpi and Hanamantappa Gulappa Shirgumpi, is alleged to have taken place in village Venkatapur, district Belgaum, on the 22nd October, 1972 at about 8-30 a.m. The F.I.R. of the occurrence was lodged by the complainant, P.W. 2 who reached Katkol on the same day at about 5 p.m. Thereafter the police arrived at the scene some time after midnight and held the usual inquest. After the investigation a charge-sheet was submitted against eight, persons who were all acquitted by the Sessions Judge after trial.

3. The defence of the accused was that all the accused persons were falsely implicated due to serious animus which they bore against the deceased and the prosecution witnesses.

4. The Sessions Judge, after recording the evidence and hearing the arguments, gave a very detailed judgment in which he found that the prosecution case against the accused had not been proved and that an attempt was made by the eye-witnesses to falsely implicate as many as four persons due to enmity. The Sessions Judge accordingly rejected the entire prosecution case and acquitted all the accused.

5. The State then filed an appeal before the Karnataka High Court which allowed the same in respect of accused Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 7 and convicted them as indicated above.

6. Appearing for the appellants Mr. Ram Reddy submitted that a perusal of the judgments of the trial court and the High Court would show that the view taken by the former cannot be said to be perverse or, at any rate, one which was not reasonably possible. The learned counsel has taken us through most of the evidence in order to show that the Sessions Judge had given cogent reasons for disbelieving the prosecution case and that even the High Court had agreed with him in some of the important conclusions regarding the credibility of the eye-witnesses.

7. After hearing counsel for the parties and going through the record we are satisfied that on a plain reading of the judgment of the High Court this is not a case in which the order of acquittal passed by the Sessions Judge should have been reversed. The main evidence against the accused consisted of two categories : (1) the evidence of eye-witnesses, viz., P. Ws. 2 to 7, and (2) the recovery of various articles stained with human blood at the instance of the appellants. The High Court agreed with the trial court that there was undoubtedly a deliberate attempt by the prosecution to rope in the four accused persons who had been acquitted by the courts and that this was done due to animosity. The High Court further endorsed the finding of the trial court that all the eye-witnesses were interested in the prosecution and inimical to the accused and that therefore their testimony should be approached with great care and caution and should not be accepted unless it was corroborated by independent evidence. The High Court found that the evidence of the eye-witnesses was corroborated by two circumstances : (1) the evidence of P. W. 5 who was an independent witness, and (2) the recovery of the dhoti and the shirt, both stained with human blood, which were produced by A-2 at the police station when he surrendered before the police. So far as the first circumstance is concerned, the High Court was clearly wrong because the evidence of P. W. 5 suffers from the same infirmity as that of other prosecution witnesses, namely, P. Ws. 2, 4 and 6, as