Judgment

Dr. Arijit Pasayat, J. —

1.In this appeal challenge is to the Judgment of a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court upholding the conviction of the appellant for offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 and Section 449 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (in short the ‘IPC’). The co-accused persons who were similarly convicted were acquitted by the High Court.

2.Background facts in a nutshell are as follows :

Jarnail Singh (hereinafter referred to as the ‘deceased’) and his wife Nasib Kaur immigrated to Canada about 12 years earlier but had both returned to Kotla about two months before Jarnail Singh’s murder on April 10, 2001. Pala Singh (PW 7) was deceased’s brother in law being the husband of Nasib Kaur’s sister. He also belonged to Kotla. Jarnail Singh lived in his house in the fields, about half a kilometre from the village, on the passage leading to Baghapurana. According to Pala Singh, he and Jarnail Singh used to sleep at night at Jarnail Singh’s farm house while Nasib Kaur would sleep with her sister in Pala Singh’s house. On the evening of April 10, 2001 Nasib Kaur and Pala Singh’s son Darshan Singh had gone to visit Jarna