JUDGMENT

Dr. Arijit Pasayat, J. —

1. Leave granted.

2. Challenge in this appeal is to the judgment of a Division Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Jabalpur Bench, holding the appellant guilty of offence punishable under Section 326 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (in short the ‘IPC’). The appellant was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 10 years. By the impugned judgment three appeals were disposed of being Criminal Appeal No.185 of 1995, 184 of 1995 and 261 of 1993. The appeal filed by accused Nanhe Lal was dismissed while the appeal filed by the appellant was partly allowed altering his conviction for offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC to one under Section 326 read with Section 34 IPC. Similar was the position in respect of co-accused Jagdish.

3. Prosecution version in a nutshell is as follows:

A few months before the incident dated 28.12.1987, Dropadibai, daughter of Gayaprasad was molested by accused Prabhu about which he was facing prosecution in the court. Accused Prabhu Dayal was in this context trying to pressurize deceased Shankar, brother of Dropdibai, to amicably settle the matter, but finding that he did n