Ashutosh Kumar, J. – We have heard Mr. Arun for the appellants and Mr. Nafisuzzoha for the informant. The state has been represented by Mr. Dilip Kumar Sinha, learned Additional Public Prosecutor.

2. The appellants have been convicted under Sections 302/34, and 120B of the I.P.C. vide judgment dated 28.06.2019 passed in Sessions Trial Court No. 184 of 2018, arising out of Bhaptiyahi P.S. Case No. 67 of 2018 by the learned Fast Track Court No.-II, Supaul and by order dated 03.07.2019, both the appellants have been sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life for the offence under Sections 302/34 I.P.C. and life term for offence under Section 120B of I.P.C.

3. The sentences have been ordered to run concurrently.

4. The appellants have been held to be entitled to the set off Section 428 of the Code of Criminal Proceducre, 1973.

5. Mr. Arun, learned advocate has urged that the case is absolutely false. Since the appellants are having some dispute with the informant and the deceased, therefore, they have been named in this case. The entire story is false for several reasons but particularly with respect to the injuries suffered by the appellants for which they were hospitalized and which was never explained by the prosecution, thereby making the initial version and the deposition at trial highly doubtful.

6. He has further submitted that several persons are said to have assaulted the deceased by sharp cutting weapons but the Doctor conducting the post-mortem examination only found one fatal injury which was a piercing injury which has been attributed to appellant/Md. Zuber. He has further submitted that Md. Meraz (P.W. 10), who is the informant of this case cannot be believed that he cannot be the eye witness to the occurrence.

7. Similarly, other prosecution witnesses also who claimed to be eye witnesses cannot be believed for their stories are absolutely inconsistent and not at all in consonance with the probable version. There is no explanation whatsoever for the body of the deceased having been subjected to post-mortem examination on the next day at 08:45 A.M. Even if it were in normal course of events, the rigor-mortis would have passed off from the body as the occurrence is said to have taken place at around 09:30 P.M. on the previous night.

8. Several motives have been attributed, Mr. Arun argues and therefore, the story about the appellants having caught hold of the deceased and pierced a knife through and through is not believable.

9. As opposed to the aforenoted contentions, Mr. Nafisuzzoha and Mr. Dilip Kumar Sinha, learned counsel for the informant and the State respectively have submitted that in the event of the informant (P.W. 10), Noor Alam (P.W. 1) and two others having witnessed the occurrence, all the grounds raised by Mr. Arun fades into background.

10. It is highly improbable, both the learned advocates have argued, that the informant would leave the main assailant and would attribute act of assault to somebody else only for feeding fat the old grudge.

11. A cliched argument was also made that motive does not assume any significance in a murder trial especially when there are eye witnesses to the occurrence and that all contradictions in their statements cannot be so magnified so as to discard the entire prosecution version especially in the background of enmity and reasons to eliminate the deceased.

12. In order to test the correctness of the prosecution version, we have examined the FIR as also the deposition of the P.W. 10 (Md. Meraz) in detail. P.W. 10 lodged the FIR at about 02:30 in the morning in the night intervening between 19th and 20th of June 2018, alleging that in the night of 18.06.2018 at about 09:45 P.M., while he was having dinner at his house, one Md. Mahboob, son of Md. Muslim came and requested his brother Noor Alam (deceased) to come to the house of Md. Muslim for some conference. The brother of the informant (deceased) went to Md. Muslim’s house, where he was surrounded by the appellants and eight othe