JUDGMENT

B.N. Agrawal, J.—The sole respondent Mela Singh was tried along with his two brothers Jit Singh and Malkiat Singh and the trial court while acquitting the other two accused persons convicted the respondent under section 302 of the Penal Code and sentenced him to undergo imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs. 200/- and in default to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of six months. He was further convicted under Section 27 of the Arms Act and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of two years and to pay a fine of Rs. 100/- and in default rigorous imprisonment for a period of three months. The sentences were, however, ordered to run concurrently. Against order of acquittal of the other accused persons, no appeal was preferred by the State whereas the respondent filed an appeal in the High Court of Punjab & Haryana against his convictions which has been allowed and he has been acquitted of all the charges.

2. Prosecution case, in short, was that one Jarnail Singh (PW 2) had six brothers including Karnail Singh and their houses were adjacent to each other. The three accused persons, namely, Jit Singh, Malkiat Singh and Mela Singh were full brothers and their houses were also adjacent that of members of prosecution party. On 15th September, 1991 at about 10.00 p.m., when Jarnail Singh (PW 2) and Karnail Singh were in their houses, accused persons came in front of the house of Karnail Singh in the street and started abusing him whereupon the two brothers came out and asked the accused persons as to why they were abusing Karnail Singh. The respondent Mela Singh was armed with single barrel 12 bore licensed gun belonging to his father Arjan Singh whereas the other accused persons with sticks who exhorted Mela Singh to fire whereupon he fired which hit Karnail Singh as a result of which he fell down with his face downwards. In the meantime, Malkiat Kaur (PW 3) also came out from the house and also witnessed the occurrence. Thereafter, PWs. 2 and 3 went inside the house of Karnail Singh and bolted the door from inside. The accused persons are said to have fired two more shots at Karnail Singh who succumbed to the injuries and dragged his dead body towards their house. The members of prosecution party did not come out from the house during the night out of fear of the accused persons. On the next morning, Jarnail Singh (PW 2) is said to have gone to village Sarpanch Hardayal Singh, along with whom he started for going to police station to lodge the first information report, but on the way, they met Nagore Singh (PW 4), the officer in-charge of the police station, who was on patrolling duty and recorded statement of Jarnail Singh at 9.00 a.m. and sent the same to the Police Station on the basis of which a first information report was drawn up on that day at 9.40 a.m. The motive for the occurrence disclosed in the first information report was that the land of accused and that of Karnail Singh - deceased were adjacent to each other and on the morning of the date of occurrence, there was some altercation between them as the accused persons had narrowed down a path way which was in between their lands for which Karnail Singh made a ­protest to Arjan Singh, father of the accused persons.

3. The police after registering the case took up investigation and on completion thereof, submitted charge sheet, on receipt whereof learned magistrate took cognizance and committed the accused persons including the respondent to the court of Session to face trial.

4. Defence of the accused was that they were innocent, had no complicity with the crime, no occurrence as alleged had taken place and the deceased might have received injuries in some other manner of occurrence.

5. During trial, the prosecution examined four witnesses in all, out of whom, Dr. Pawan Kumar Mangla (PW 1) held postmortem examination on the dead body of Karnail Singh. Jarnail Singh (PW 2) and Malkiat Kaur (PW 3) claimed to be eyewitnesses to the