IMPORTANT POINT
Case not proved beyond reasonable doubt will entitle the accused to benefit of doubt.

JUDGMENT

A.K. SIKRI, J.

The two appellants herein are aggrieved by the judgment of the High Court pronounced on July 27, 2011, whereby their conviction under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for short, ‘IPC’), as recorded by the Magistrate, has been upheld and their sentence to undergo life imprisonment with fine is also confirmed thereby.

2. The prosecution case, on the basis of which the appellants along with eleven other persons were charged for committing offences of different nature, is stated by the High Court in para 5 of the impugned judgment. There is no dispute that the prosecution version, as recorded therein, suffers from any inaccuracies. Therefore, in order to have a glimpse of the prosecution case, we would take the facts as narrated in para 5 of the impugned judgment:

3. The complainant, appellants and other accused persons are residents of Chandrapur. Complainant – Manoj Bhaskar Ugade knew both the appellants. The incident had occurred on November 17, 2002. The complainant had bought new motorcycle and with a view to celebrate the occasion, he had arranged a party at Junona in Ballarshah Tehsil. Junona is a forest place and it appears that there is some Holiday Resort also. It is a picnic place which is normally crowded to some extent on holidays. The said party arranged by Manoj was attended by his friends, including the two deceased, Vinod Channewar and Chandu Prakash Dongre. In addition to the above deceased, the said party was attended by Golu Ramteke, Jivan Mahadole, Anil Tajne, Sahilesh Gujarkar, Dilip Pradhan, Shankar Thakre, Vinod Shende, Santosh Kashti and Bahadur Hajare. The food was to be prepared on the spot. Therefore, raw material was taken to the spot of party in a Maruti van. The complainant and his friends reached the spot at about 12.00 noon and they started preparing meals. Since meals were not ready, the deceased had gone little away from the place of party to buy Gutka. They returned to the spot at about 12.30 p.m. The meals were still not ready. They, therefore, started playing cards at some distance from the place where the complainant was preparing roties. While the complainant was busy in his work, suddenly 8 to 10 persons reached the spot. The deceased, Vinod and Chandu, started running after witnessing them. However, the said 8 to 10 persons followed the deceased. The two appellants before us were holding swords. It is alleged that both of them started assaulting deceased Vinod with the swords in their hands, while rest of the persons followed Chandu. The complainant could not see as to what happened to Chandu. However, after the culprits fled away, it was seen by the complainant that there were severe injuries on the head of deceased Vinod. His brain material had come out. Obviously he was dead. Deceased Chandu was found at some distance in the same condition. The complainant, therefore, threw away all the eating material and immediately rushed to the brother of Bahadur Hajare. It may be stated that Bahadur Hajare was one of the persons who had attended the party. Thereafter, the complainant along with his friends had gone to the house of Advocate Rangari at Chandrapur to take his advice as to what they should do further in the matter. Advocate Rangari advised him to report the matter to the police. The matter was reported to City Police Station, Chandrapur. They had registered an offence vide Crime No. 00/02 under Section 302 read with Section 34 of IPC and Section 4 read with Section 25 of the Arms Act against the appellants and others. Since the place of incident was not within the jurisdiction of City Police Station, intimation was given to Ballarshah Police Station regarding the incident. Upon receiving the intimation, Ballarshah Police Station registered FIR No. 220 of 2002 and investigation was taken up by P.I. Mr. Kshirsagar, who visited the spot. Two of the witnesses were called, who had indentified the bodies lying on the spot. Inquest was d