Judgment

FAZAL ALI J. :- By our Order dated July 16, 1985, we had dismissed the appeals. We now proceed to give reasons for the same.

2. The prosecution case has been detailed in the judgments of the High Court and the trial Court and it is not necessary for us to repeat the same all over again. The accused, Keisam Kumar Singh, Bijoy Singh and Sagolsem Ibotomcha Singh were put on trial before the Sessions Judge for an offence under Section 302/34, IPC for causing murder of the deceased. Raghumani Singh.

3. The entire case hinges on the evidence of the two eye-witnesses, PW 1 (Oken Singh) and PW 2 (Manihar Singh) who were actually friends of the deceased and belonged to the same village which was situated within the jurisdiction of Moirang police station.

4. According to the prosecution, on December 14,1970, PWs 1 and 2 accompanied by the deceased, went to Hotel Deluxe and took their meals in room No. 2 at about 4.30 P.m. Thereafter, they visited Usha Talkies to see the film Romeo & Juliet which started at 5.15 p.m. and ended at 7.30 p.m.

5. The learned trial Judge seems to have made an absolutely artificial and computerised approach regarding the timings of the various places visited by PWs 1 and 2 and the deceased. It was further alleged that after the show had ended, PW 1 found his fountain pen missing and when the same could not be traced in the cinema hall, they went to Hotel Deluxe. On reaching the Hotel, the deceased went inside room No. 2 and found it occupied by the three accused persons, on which Bijoy Singh took exception to the conduct of the deceased, Raghumani Singh, entering the room without permission and disturbing them this resulted in a short altercation and exchange of abuses. The deceased asked his friends to go to the residence of one Mirtunjoy Singh to get back his book which he had loaned to him. While they were proceeding towards Keisampat Bridge on Paon Road and had proceeded about 300 to 400 yards from the Hotel, they found the accused persons standing. on the western side near the office of the Industries Department. Bijoy Singh ordered them to halt and the three accused rushed towards them and when the deceased and PWs 1 and 2 tried to get away, Bijoy Singh and Keisam kumar obstructed the way of Raghumani. Thereafter, the accused, Ibotomcha stabbed the deceased with a dagger in his stomach. After the stabbing incident, the accused ran away from the place of occurrence.

6. It is the common case of the parties that two of the three accused were not earlier known to PWs 1 and 2, the two main eyewitnesses, who saw the assault on the deceased and recognised the assailants in the light which was coming from an electric pole. It is also not disputed that the accused were put at a T. I. parade shortly after their arrest and PWs 1 and 2 identified them both in the T. I. parade and also before the trial Court. The defence was one of complete denial of the occurrence.

7. We have gone through the judgments of the High Court and the Sessions Judge and we are convinced that the learned Sessions Judge had acquitted the accused on the basis of trivial discrepancies which do not affect the main case of the prosecution. To begin with, one of the main reasons given by the Sessions Judge is that as the accused were not known to the witnesses they could not have been identified by them, forgetting that before the incident there were several opportunities for the witnesses to have seen the accused though for a very shortwhile, viz., at the Hotel and at the place of occurrence. The occurrence had taken place at about 7.30 p.m. PW 1 had lodged the FIR promptly at about 9.20 p.m. There was no time for concoction. Only Bijoy Singh is named in the FIR and it is stated that the other two could be identified. It is significant to note that no major part is attributed to Bijoy Singh by PWs 1 and 2. It is the prosecution case that only accused (Ibotomcha) stabbed the deceased. Secondly, there was electric light where the deceased was s