JUDGMENT

Dr. Arijit Pasayat, J.—

1. Leave granted.

2. Challenge in this appeal is to the judgment of a Division Bench of the Chhattisgarh High Court upholding the conviction of the appellant for offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 ( in short the ‘IPC’). Four persons faced trial for alleged commission of the aforesaid offence. Out of them two were found guilty by Special Judge & Additional Sessions Judge, Durg. Co-accused Puranlal and Prahlad were acquitted.

3. Prosecution version in a nutshell is as follows:

On 19-9-2000 Hiralal (hereinafter referred to as the ‘deceased’) along with Dhaneshwari (PW-1) went to his agricultural field at about 10 a.m. for blocking the water course. When Hiralal and Dhaneshwari were busy blocking the water course, accused Badku @ Komal and Posu came near Hiralal and asked Hiralal not to block the water course, on which . Hiralal said that if he will not block the water course, then water will not come to his field and his field will become dry. On that, some altercation took place between them. At that time accused Posu was carrying Chatwar (a square iron plate fitted at the one end of the stick) acc