K.N. KESHAVANARAYANA, J.—This appeal by the convicted accused is directed against the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 11.08.2005 passed by the Presiding Officer, Fast Track Court-I, Chickmagalur, in S.C. No. 52 of 2004 convicting him for offence punishable under Part-II of Section 304 of I.P.C. and sentencing him to undergo Rigorous Imprisonment for three years and to pay fine of Rs. 4,000/-.

2. The case of the prosecution in brief was that, at about 6.15pm on 26.03.2004 the accused and deceased Sanjeeva Poojari visited arrack shop of CW.13, husband of PW.8-Rama, consumed arrack and also purchased 3 to 4 packets of arrack; both them together left the arrack shop towards the garden land of PW.1-Thirtharaj K.S., and his brother: PW.7-Ravindra K.S., situated at Tanodi Village; that on the way at about 6.45 p.m., when the deceased insisted the accused to drink arrack, the accused refused saying that he has already consumed enough liquor; that nevertheless, the deceased insisted the accused to drink, tried to pour arrack into the mouth of the accused and also assaulted the accused on his head; that because of this, the accused became angry and being annoyed, picked-up a fire-wood piece lying nearby and hit the deceased on the head and other parts of the body, as a result of which, the deceased fell down; that thereafter, getting confused, the accused took the deceased near the water tank situated in Survey No. 108 belonging to PWs.1 & 7 to give the deceased water; that however, at that place, he realized that the deceased has died, therefore, he threw the dead body into the tank and went away from the place; that in the evening of 28.03.2004, when PW.1 visited his land, he noticed the dead body of the deceased-Sanjeeva Poojari floating in the tank water in the land; that immediately, he made a report to the jurisdictional police as per Ex.P1, based on which the police registered the case in Crime No. 19 of 2004 for the offence punishable under Section 302 of I.P.C. against unknown persons and took-up investigation.

3. During investigation, the dead body was taken-out of the tank water, inquest was held over the dead body and later subjected to post-mortem examination. PW.9-Dr. H.P. Lakshmi Narayana, who conducted post-mortem examination on the dead body and submitted the report as per Ex.P9, opined that the death was due to injury to vital organs like brain and spinal card.

4. During investigation, the statements of the witnesses recorded revealed that the accused and the deceased were working together under PWs.1 & 7 and on the relevant date, both of them had visited the arrack shop and left together. Thus, the deceased was last seen alive in the company of the accused. On that basis the accused was apprehended and interrogated. During interrogation, the accused said to have disclosed his complicity in the commission of the offence, therefore, he was arraigned as accused. The blood-stained shirt found on the person of the accused and the club said to have been used for the commission of the offence were seized at the instance of the accused. During investigation, from the scene of occurrence blood-stained mud was also recovered and thereafter, the seized articles were subjected to FSL examination. However, though the forensic report indicated the presence of some blood-stains on the shirt seized from the person of the accused, the club said to have been seized at his instance did not contain any blood-stains. The serology report-Ex.P.15 indicated that the origin of blood-stains found on the shirt seized from the person of the accused could not be ascertained. On completion of investigation, charge sheet came to be filed against the accused for the offence punishable under Section 302 of I.P.C.

5. On committal of the case, the learned Sessions Judge after hearing the learned counsel appearing on both sides and on perusal of the evidence produced along with the charge-sheet, did not find any prima facie materi