IMPORTANT POINT
Failure to send the blood-stained earth for chemical examination is no ground to doubt the prosecution case when there is clinching evidence both oral and circumstantial establishing the place of occurrence.

JUDGMENT

K. Jayachandra Reddy, J. - The sole accused in this case is the appellant. He was tried for an offence punishable under Section 302 I.P.C. but acquitted by the trial court. The State preferred an appeal to the High Court and a Division Bench relying on the evidence of the eye-witnesses reversed the order of acquittal and convicted him under Section 302 I.P.C. and sentenced him to undergo imprisonment for life. This appeal is preferred under Section 379 Cr. P.C. read with Section 2 of the Supreme Court (Enlargement of Criminal Jurisdiction) Act. The prosecution case is as follows.

2. The accused, the deceased and the material witnesses belong to Delhi. One Nand Kishore P.W. 18 is the elder brother of deceased Ved Prakash. They were living in a house in Hudson, Lines, Kingsway Camp, Delhi and in a portion of the said house, P.W. 18 was running a kirana shop. The accused used to stand by that shop and used to tease the girls passing from thereby making undesirable remarks. The deceased used to check the accused from doing so. On 14.3 .1972 in the evening the accused passed undesirable remarks against the girls passing near the shop of P.W. 18. The deceased checked him but the accused did not desist. There was a quarrel between the two. The accused was beaten by the deceased who left saying that he would avenge the insult. The next day i.e. 15.3.1972 at about: 7.30 p.m. the accused came to the shop of P.W. 18 where the deceased was working and attacked with a sua, which is used for breaking ice. The accused was over-powered by Ram Lal, P.W. 7, and Amar Nath, P.W. 8 and they caught hold of him on the spot. The injured deceased was removed to Irwin Hospital by P.W. 15, one Vijay Kumar who was known to the deceased and was passing that way. Dr. Dinesh Bhargava, P.W. 20 examined the deceased and declared him dead. The Police Control Room was informed and the investigation was commenced. P.W. 17, Sub Inspector prepared the report and took the accused into custody. He kept guard at the place of occurrence. Thereafter F.I.R. was sent to the Police Station for registration of the crime. Inquest was held over the dead body and the Doctor conducted the post-mortem and issued the post-mortem certificate which is proved by Dr. Y.P. Rana. In the post-mortem certificate five injuries were found. Injuries Nos. 1 and 2 were punctured wounds on the left side of the chest Injury No. 5 was another punctured wound on the left thigh. On internal examination it was found that injury No.1 had caused a hole in the side wall of pulmory artiery and had then entered the wall of Aorta. The total depth was about 8-9 cms. Injury No.2 entered the lung. He opined that the death was due to shock and haemorrhage as a result of these injuries. The medical evidence proves beyond doubt that the injuries are serious and the death was homicidal. This aspect is not in dispute.

3. The two eye-witnesses P.Ws. 7 and 8, as per the prosecution version, stated that they saw the accused-appellant giving sua blows to the deceased and they apprehended him and handed over him to the Inspector, P.W. 26. The learned Additional Sessions Judge rejected the evidence of these eye-witnesses pointing out certain discrepancies. Some of the circumstances pointed out by him for not accepting their evidence are that Ram Lal, P.W. 7 was the uncle of the deceased and Amar Nath, P.W. 8 was his cousin and at 7.30 p.m. P.W. 7 should have been at his shop and not near his house and P.W. 8 was not having any employment and that though they are near relations of the deceased they did not attend to the injured but continued to hold the accused. Even after many people gathered they did not care to look at the deceased and they did not even go to the hospital alongwith the deceased. The learned Judge also pointed out that these witnesses did not care to notice the blood on the clothes of the deceased or on the road and they could not give the time gap between the deceased falling down and his