( 1 ) THIS criminal appeal has been preferred by Dharam pal, Neeraj, Vijay, Sunder and Ajay Kumar against the judgment and order of sentence passed by learned additional Sessions Judge, Karkardooma courts, Delhi vide judgment dated 16. 5. 2001 the above named appellants were held guilty for the offence punishable under section 302/34 IPC and vide order of sentence dated 17. 5. 2001 they were sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life and also to pay fine of Rs. 5000/- each and in default of payment of fine to undergo simple imprisonment for six months.

( 2 ) WE have heard Mr. Rajender Kumar, Advocate, learned counsel for the appellants and Mr. Ravinder chadha learned Additional Public Prosecutor for the state and have gone through the record.

( 3 ) BRIEFLY stating the facts of the case are that an intimation (DD No. 29a) was received at P. S. Kalyan puri on the night intervening 15-16. 3. 1998 from duty constable posted at Swami Dayanand Hospital (SDN hospital) Shahdara, regarding admission of one Ram Kumar in injured condition at 2:30 A. M. on account of a "quarrel". He was brought to hospital by his brother-in- law Mahinder. On this intimation H. C. (Head Constable) virpal along with Constable Rishi Kumar reached SDN hospital and obtained MLC of injured Ram Kumar who had been declared fit, (as noted on the MLC) by the Doctor, for making statement. Accordingly, H. C. Virpal recorded the statement of the injured Ram Kumar who narrated that on 9. 3. 1998 Sunder and Ajay had borrowed Rs. 1000/- from him for 2 days but they did not refund the money. On 15. 3. 1998 at about 8 P. M. he went to Ajay and demanded money. Ajay took him to Sunder when some altercation started. At that time other appellants also came and were adamant to fight with him. Smt. Kranti, his aunt, came there and pacified them by suggesting that the matter could be settled later on. She brought him back to his jhuggi and laid him on the cot. Later at about 10 p. M. all the accused persons came to his jhuggi. Accused neeraj and Sunder caught hold of his legs while Ajay and Vijay caught hold of his hands and Dharam Pal put a bottle of whiskey in his mouth. On his refusal Dharam pal slapped him, gave fist blows and forcibly poured some whisky like liquid into his mouth which tasted like acid, with the result he started having burning sensation. He raised alarm and they all ran away. His brother-in-law Mahinder brought him to the hospital. On this statement H. C. Virpal Singh made endorsement at about 3:45 A. M. for registration of the case under section 307/34 IPC and also requested for deputing some officer to investigate the matter. Accordingly, the FIR was registered at 4:20 A. M. and the investigation was entrusted to ASI Sobran Singh. Before investigation could be carried out the injured Ram Kumar expired at 5:20 A. M. Thereafter the case was converted to one under Section 302/34 IPC and the investigation was taken over by Inspector/sho of the police station. The dead body was sent for postmortem, statements of the witnesses were recorded under section 161 Cr. P. C. , accused persons were arrested, their disclosure statements were written and the case property was sent to cfsl for expert examination.

( 4 ) THE prosecution examined 29 witnesses. PW-1 dinesh, PW-2 Mahender Kumar, PW-3 Smt. Kranti and PW-4 ami Chand are near relatives of the deceased. PW-5 Dr. Pradosh Kumar Padhy, PW-6 Dr. R. V. Singh and PW-23 Dr. Surya Kant Pankaj are from SDN Hospital who attended to the injured at various stages of his treatment. PW-8 is dr. Ashok Jaiswal, autopsy surgeon, who conducted the post mortem. PW-26 Dr. Mohd. Afzal, PW-27 Dr. A. K. Sharma and PW-28 Shri S. Sathyan are the experts from cfsl. PW-10 H. C. Rishi Pal, PW-14 H. C. Tej Pal Singh, PW- 16 Constable Sanjeev Kumar, PW-17 Constable Krishan kumar, PW-22 Constable Jitender are the police officials who dealt with the case property. PW-9 SI Mukesh Kumar is the draftsman who prepared the scaled site