The main legal point established in the judgment is the importance of credible witness testimony and corroborating evidence in establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Arindam Sinha, J.

1. Three convicted persons are the appellants in these two appeals. They were the accused in Sessions Case no.70/2003/Sessions Trial no.38/2005 in which judgment dated 29th June, 2015 was passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Katwa. The appellants in Criminal Appeal no.529/2015 had been found guilty of charges for offences punishable under sections 323/325 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The appellant in Criminal Appeal no.545/2015 was found, in addition to the above, guilty of the charge for offence punishable under section 302 of the IPC.

2. Katwa P.S case no.201/1999 dated 26th November, 1999 under sections 143/326/34 IPC was initiated on the basis of written complaint dated 26th November, 1999. Later, section 302 IPC was added on the death of one Anil Kumar Hazra. The police submitted charge-sheet dated 27th March, 2002 under sections 341/323/325/302/34 IPC on completion of investigation. Charges were framed accordingly and trial took place.

3. The written complaint dated 26th November, 1999 was that at about 3:00 in the afternoon trouble took place between the appellants and the said Anil Kumar Hazra, since deceased over the issue of drainage of water from the house. The appellants accompanied by 5/6 persons physically assaulted the deceased, his wife, also since subsequently deceased, his daughter Jayanti Hazra and son Sandip Hazra. All of them sustained serious bleeding injuries. Local people took them to Katwa hospital and admitted them there. The complaint stated the deceased was struggling for life and his wife also critical.

4. It appears from the inquest report that upon information received at 09:45 hrs. on 27th November, 1999, inquiry was made. The body of Anil Kumar Hazra was found in the male ward on the ground floor of Katwa S.D. Hospital. The post-mortem report, also dated 27th November, 1999 states, inter alia, one haematoma (3”x2”) over the mid-portion of fronto parietal region depressed at the middle of frontal bone and one haematoma over the right supraclavicular region (7”x3/4”). The doctor opined that cause of death was due to shock and hemorrhage as a result of injuries which were ante-mortem but could not say whether nature of injuries was accidental or homicidal.

5. Widow of the said deceased died on 10th October, 2006 and as such could not be examined in the trial. It may be mentioned here that the scribe and the complainant were respectively PW 1 and PW 2, the latter being the brother of the deceased. The daughter of the deceased was PW 3 while the son PW 4. Retired sub-inspector of police Sri S. Acharyya, who was entrusted with the investigation, was PW 12.

6. The prosecution case at trial was that all the prosecution witnesses had fully corroborated each other, particularly the eye witness accounts, about the incident and the roles played by the accused in the assault whereby one person died and three others were severely injured. Furthermore, the medical evidence fully corroborated the prosecution case and eye witness versions.

7. At trial two main contentions of defence were made out. Firstly that the scribe is admittedly an active worker of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a resident of different locality, far away from the residence of the deceased. There was no earthly reason to pick up such a political person for writing the complaint when the complainant himself could have easily gone to the P.S and stated to the police officer whose duty was to record the same. The reason is not far to see since this contention of the defence was that Anil Kumar Hazra was a butcher and he used to sell meat of hogs which enraged the Muslims of the locality and in order to save his skin he took shelter of the BJP. Since the accused are supporters of Communist Party India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] party, a false complaint was lodged against them. The second line of defence was that when the deceased was returning home on 26th November, 1999 at about 3:30 p.m., he was heavily drunk and as a r