Judgment

Dr. Arijit Pasayat, J. —

1.Challenge in this appeal is to the correctness of the Judgment rendered by a Division Bench of the Madras High Court upholding the conviction of the appellants for offence punishable under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (in short the ‘IPC’) and sentence of imprisonment for life as awarded by learned Sessions Judge, Trichi.

2.Prosecution version as unfolded during trial was as follows :

Allegation was that between 10 P.M. on 10.8.1989 and 4 A.M. on 11.8.1999, the appellants murdered one Mugamuni (hereinafter referred to as the ‘deceased’) by strangling him to death and threw the dead body into a well to screen themselves from the offence. The appellants hereinafter referred to as A1 to A5 for the sake of convenience.

The deceased is the son of PW 4. PW 5 is the younger sister of the deceased and PW 8 is the paternal uncle of PW 4. PW 11 is the cousin of the deceased. PWs. 3 & 10 are also related to the deceased. P.W.2 is the brother of P.W.12. A.2 and A.3 are cousins and A.4 is the son of maternal aunt of A.2 and A.3. A.1 is related to A.5. The witnesses, the deceased Magamuni and accused 1 to 5 were residing at Mathagiri village. The decea