Judgment :-

S.B. Sinha, J.

1. Appellant is before us, aggrieved by and dissatisfied with a judgment of conviction and sentence dated 7.6.2004 passed by a Division Bench of the High Court of Karnataka at Bangalore in Criminal Appeal No. 32 of 1999 reversing a judgment of acquittal dated 15.9.1998 in S.C. No. 30/91 passed in his favour by the 1st Additional Sessions Judge, Mysore.

2. There is a small village ‘Rammanahalli situate near the town of Mysore. It has two streets called ‘Kelaginakeri and ‘Melinakeri. A cinema tent was put therein. There were two groups in the village residing in one or the other said streets. One group intended the owner of cinema/theatre to exhibit films starring Dr. Rajkumar and the other group asked them to exhibit the films starring Sri Vishnuvardhan. They had been asking the proprietor of the theatre to release the films in which their favourite stars were acting. The occurrence took place at about 8.00 a.m. on 9.12.1990.

3. The prosecution case is as under:

Maruchhaiah, the deceased, had gone out of his house to have a cup of tea. A clash between two groups of people from the aforementioned streets ‘Kelaginakeri and ‘Melinakeri took place. During the s