Judgment :

1. This judgment will dispose of the three criminal appeals noted above.

2. The facts have been taken from Criminal Appeal No. 1487 of 2005 which is the lead case. They are as under:

2.1 Sudhakar and his wife Shilpa aged 52 and 50 years respectively both deceased in this matter were running a business in stones and slabs at 224, Railway Goodshed Road, Belgaum. The factory was on the ground floor whereas the couple were residing on the first floor of the premises. On the 10th of June, 2000, the couple attended a tea party in the house of their acquaintance one Parth Deshpande, and after the party was over at about 6:00p.m. P.W. 6 Mohan Ramnath, who had also attended the party, dropped them off at their residence in his car. As per the prosecution story, at about 8:30p.m., P.W. 1 Parasram and his wife heard some knocking on their door and on opening the same they saw Shilpa aforesaid lying on the ground. On enquiry she disclosed that three persons had attacked her husband and her and had caused them severe injuries. On receiving this information, P.W. 1 and his wife immediately summoned P.W. 16 Dr. Ramesh who had a hospital close by and on his advice they first took Shilpa to his hospital and she and her husband were later shifted to the K.L.E. Hospital. The doctor pronounced Sudhakar as having been brought dead on arrival whereas Shilpa died three days later while under treatment. P.W. 1, who was the business Manager of the couple, also informed the relatives of the victims including P.W. 9 the son of the deceased and P.W. 17 Sudhakar's brother also reached the spot. The latter thereupon lodged a First Information Report for offences punishable under Sections 302 and 397 of the Indian Penal Code against unknown persons. During the course of the investigation, some finger prints were lifted from a window pane as per the scientific procedure prescribed. A search was also conducted in the neighbourhood and the accused were ultimately arrested on the 22nd June, 2000 by a police party as they were behaving in a suspicious manner. They were brought to the police station and interrogated by P.W. 28 to whom they made disclosure statements under Section 27 of the Evidence Act. Pursuant to the disclosure statements, recoveries of gold ornaments alleged to have been taken from the deceased couple as also the blood stained clothes of the accused were recovered in the presence of P.W. 24. On the completion of the investigation, the accused were charged for offences punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC on two counts and under Sections 392 and 397 of the IPC. They denied their culpability and were accordingly brought to trial.

2.2 The prosecution produced 29 witnesses in evidence and also a large number of exhibits including the recovered articles on disclosure as also those that had been picked up from the spot. The trial court on an appreciation of the evidence held the accused guilty on all counts and convicted and sentenced them to undergo various terms of imprisonment. The trial court noticed that all the witnesses including P.Ws. 3 and 5 who were the neighbours of the deceased and who were alleged to have seen the accused running away after the crime, had been declared hostile as they had not supported the prosecution. Likewise, P.W. 7, the jeweller who had been brought by the investigating agency to verify and weigh the ornaments, did not support the prosecution and he too had been declared hostile. Even more significantly P.W. 8 to whom the stolen ornaments had been allegedly sold backed away from supporting the prosecution. The matter was thereafter taken in appeal to the High Court and the High Court while noticing that the only evidence against the appellants were the recoveries made from them pursuant to their statements under Section 27 of the Evidence Act (as all the other material witnesses referred to above had not supported the prosecution) dismissed the appeal. It is in this situation that