JUDGMENT

KULDIP SINGH, J.:—Appa Balu Ingale and four others were tried for the offences under Ss. 4 and 7 of the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 (the Act). The trial Court convicted all of them under S. 4 of the Act and sentenced them to undergo simple imprisonment for one month and a fine of Rs. 100/- each and in default to suffer simple imprisonment for further five days. Appa Balu Ingale was further convicted under S. 7 of the Act but no separate sentence was awarded to him for the said offence. The Additional Sessions Judge, Belgaum, on appeal, upheld the conviction and sentence of Appa Balu Ingale, Shankar Babaji Patil and Rajaram Rama Sankpal. The learned Judge, however, allowed the appeal of the other two convicts and acquitted them. Against the judgment of the Appellate Court Appa Balu Ingale and two others went in revision before the High Court. The learned single Judge of the Karnataka High Court allowed the criminal revision petition and acquitted all of them. This appeal by way of special leave petition is by the State of Karnataka against the judgment of the High Court. During the pendency of the appeal respondent Appa Balu Ingale died on November 4, 1991. The appeal against him has thus abated.

2. The charge against the respondents was that they restrained the complainant party by show of force from taking water from a newly dug-up borewell on the ground that they were untouchables. The prosecution produced four witnesses who were all Harijans. The trial Court and the Appellate Court, on appreciation of the evidence, reached the concurrent finding that the charge against the respondents-accused was proved beyond reasonable doubt. Ordinarily it is not open for the High Court to interfere with the concurrent findings of the courts below specially by re-appreciating the evidence in its revisional jurisdiction. The High Court disbelieved evidence of all the four witnesses who deposed to the actual incident as happened before their eyes. According to the High Court their evidence was not uniform in regard to actual words uttered by the accused persons and the manner they prevented the complainant party from taking water from the well. The High Court rejected the testimony of the eye-witnesses on the following reasoning :-

"Thus, not only the evidence of these witnesses regarding the actual manner in which the accused obstructed and what words they uttered, is discrepant and not consistent, but what is not certain from the evidence is as to who among the accused persons obstructed and used those particular words attributed to the accused. It cannot expect that all the accused would use the words simultaneously in a chorus in the manner the witnesses stated before the Court. Therefore, it cannot be said with any amount of certainty which among the accused was guilty of the offence. The evidence adduced on behalf of the prosecution was wholly insufficient to establish the charge of the offence under S. 4(iv) of the Act levelled against them."

3. We are of the view that the High Court fell into patent error in rejecting the prosecution evidence. We have examined the statements of eye-witnesses as dealt with in detail by the Appellate Court. We are of the view that the charge against the respondents has been proved beyond doubt. PW1 Thalu, who is the complainant, has deposed that the borewell in question was being drilled at a distance of about 15 feet from Harijan colony and water sprouted from the well on the date of the incident at about 9.30 p.m. At that time many persons including the accused persons and some Harijans including PWs 1 to 4 were present there. Two yound girls of the Hindu community performed pooja. Thereafter 10/15 Hindus took water from the well for performing pooja at the temple. He further stated that he along with five other persons including PWs, who were all Harijans, also brought pots for taking water from the well. At that time the three respondents told the Harijans not to take water from the