JUDGMENT :

K.M. JOSEPH, J.

1. Since these appeals involve the same impugned judgment of the High Court acquitting the respondents of offences under Section 147, 148, 149 and 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the IPC’, for short), we deem it fit to dispose of the same by a common judgment.

PROSECUTION CASE IN BRIEF

2. The complaint in this case, which led to the trial, was lodged by one Swarn Singh-PW1. The complaint in brief is as follows:

On 22.08.1992, when he, along with his father, mother and maternal uncle, were going on a tractor from Nanakmatta to their village and his father was driving the tractor, when the tractor reached one kilometre from their house, they found that a bullock cart has blocked their passage. The tractor stopped near the bullock cart. One of the accused-Pahalwan Singh appeared. The other accused, along with him, were hiding near a tree. He was having a sword in his hand. Resham Singh, who is the third respondent in Criminal Appeal No. 1857 of 2013, had a country-made pistol in his hands. Daleep Singh had a ballam (a sharp edged weapon), his son Jagir Singh carried a country-made pistol. Darshan Singh also had a country-made pisto