Reliability of evidence and witness credibility are crucial for criminal conviction; discrepancies in testimony and FIR registration can lead to acquittal.

ORDER

1. This appeal is at the instance of the State of Uttar Pradesh and is directed against the Judgment and Order passed by the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad dated 17-9-2015 in Criminal Appeal No.2376/2011, by which the High Court allowed the appeal filed by the respondents - herein - original accused and thereby set aside the Judgment and Order of conviction passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Fast Track Court No.4, Fatehpur in Sessions Trial No.620/2005, 621/2005 and 622/2005 respectively, arising from the First Information Report bearing Crime No.30/2005, Crime No.31/2005 and Crime No.32/2005 registered for the offence punishable under Section 302 of the INDIAN PENAL CODE (for short the 'IPC') and Section 25 of the ARMS ACT .

2. The case of the prosecution may be summarized as under:-

3. The deceased were husband and wife. They were agriculturists. They earned their livelihood from agricultural operations. The respondents - herein (original accused persons) are brothers. They are also agriculturists and they also earn their livelihood from agricultural operations. It appears from the materials on record that there was a long standing dispute between the deceased persons and the accused persons relating to a property.

4. It is the case of the prosecution that on the date of incident, i.e., 27-3-2005 at about 11.30 a.m., the accused persons picked up an altercation with the deceased and at the end of it the two accused fired from their respective fire arms resulting in serious injuries to the husband and wife who later succumbed.

5. According to the prosecution, at the time of the incident the two sons of the deceased persons were present. 'PW 1' - Subhash Kumar, and the 'PW 2' - Suddu claim to be the eye-witnesses to the incident.

6. The First Information Report came to be resisted at around 1.50 p.m. in Thariyav Police Station, District Fatehpur, U.P. by 'PW 1. The First Information Report reads thus:-

"PS: Thariav (Paper Torn) Chandrabhan Prasad Tiwari, R/o Village: Aurayi, District: (Paper Torn) resident. Today on 27.03.2005 at about (Paper Torn) in the day time, when my mother by name: Kunti Devi aged about 50 years and my father: Chandrabhan (Paper Torn) Tiwari, aged about 55 years were present in our Lentil Fields to cut the harvest, at that itself, our villagers Sukhendra Kumar and Chulli Tiwari - both sons of Krishna Gopal Tiwari with whom we have previous land dispute already armed with illegal fire arms came to the field at about 11.30 AM to my parents and objected them from cutting the standing crop to which we told them -"This field belong to us and this crop too belongs to us." This enraged them as a result of which they fired with their aforesaid firearms in a random manner resulting in the wounds upon my parents who died instantaneously at the spot itself. On witnessing this ghastly incident the agricultural workers working in the field got scared ran away from there and even passers too abandoned their normal road route and fled away from the spot towards the village by walk ways path due to the scare and commotion and terror created by these assailants resulting in chaos and atmosphere of terror in the whole area meanwhile this incident has been witnessed by the neighbourhood workers present nearby at that moment. The dead bodies of my deceased parents are still lying on the spot. Applicant: Subhash Kumar, S/o: Chandrabhan Prasad Tiwari, Village: Aurayi, PS: Thariyav, Fatehpur, Date 27.03.2005. Written by: Md. Waheed, S/o: Bhullu, R/o: Bahrampur, PS: Thariyav, Fat