U.B. Saha, J.

1. By way of filing this appeal, the State appellant has challenged the judgment and order, dated 10-4-2002, passed by the learned Sessions Judge. North Tripura, Kailashahar in Sessions Trial No. 31 (NT/K) 2001 whereby and whereunder the accused persons, 16 in number, have been acquitted from the charges levelled against them under Sections 148, 149, 326 of the Indian Penal Code (for short IPC) read with Section 27 of the Arms Act.

2. Heard Mr. A. Ghosh, learned Addl. Public Prosecutor for the State appellant and Mr. S. Dutta Choudhary, learned Counsel appearing for the respondents.

3. The prosecution case as required to be discussed for disposal of the instant appeal, in short, is that P.W. 1, Sunil Malakar lodged a written F. I. R. with the Officer-in-Charge of Fatikroy Police Station alleging that on 19-8-1994 at about 11.30 p.m. when Jitendra Malakar (P. W. 10), Malay Kanti Bhowmick (P. W. 2), Samar Malakar and Satyendra Deb (P.W.5) were working in the CPI (M) party office at that time accused persons namely, Jyotirmoy Malakar, Hiranmoy Malakar, Mohonbasi Das, Nimai Das, Abhimanyu Das and 20 others duly armed with gun, pistol, arrows and bows attacked the party office and thereby the aforesaid persons sustained serious injuries and left the office through the back door. Thereafter, there were hue and cry and other people came there and shifted them to Fatikroy Hospital. It is also alleged in the FIR that all the assailants had absconded therefrom and they had threatened that they would kill all the CPI (M) supporters of the locality and burn their houses.

4. On receipt of the written ejahar as stated supra, a police case was registered being Fatikroy P. S. Case No. 56/94 and after investigation, the I/O. of the case (P. W. 11) submitted charge-sheet against the aforesaid accused persons under Sections 148, 149, 324, 326 of the IPC and under Section 27 of the Arms Act. In due course, the case was committed to the Court of learned Sessions Judge and the learned Sessions Judge framed charges against all the accused persons, respondents herein under Sections 148, 149 and 326 of IPC read with Section 27 of the Arms Act to which the accused persons pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried.

5. To prove the charges levelled against the accused persons, prosecution examined as many as 12 witnesses including the official witnesses. Out of them P.W. 1, Sunil Malakar is the informant, P.W. 2, Shri Malay Kanti Bhowmik. P.W. 5, Shri Satyendra Deb and P.W. 10, Shri Jitendra Malakar are the injured eye witnesses. P.W. 3, Shri Subhas Dey is not an eye witness. He only heard regarding the incident. P.W. 4, Shri Dhirendra Baidya Corroborated the statement of P.Ws. 2, 5 and 10 to some extent. P.W. 6 is Lal Mohan Malakar who stated that at the time of occurrence, he was in his house and only after the occurrence he went to the CPI (M) party office and found the aforesaid three injured persons namely, Jitendra Malakar (P.W.10), Malay Kanti Bhowmik (P. W. 2) and Samar Malakar not examined by the prosecution as witness). P.W. 7, Shri Sukesh Bhowmik was tendered by the prosecution and P.W. 8 is Nigur Bashi Das from whose house the investigating authority seized 10 Nos. of arrows made of iron (triangular) in the sticks of bamboo and three Nos. of bow made of undried bamboo. This witness was also tendered by the prosecution. P.W. 9, Shri Akhil Malakar is a seizure witness of the aforesaid articles seized from the house of P.W. 8. P.W. 11 is Suman Paul, S. I. of Police who investigated the prosecution case and P.W. 12 Shri Maniksena Singh is a police officer who supervised the investigation.

6. At the conclusion of the trial, the learned Sessions Judge acquitted the accused persons from all the charges levelled against them by the impugned judgment and order as noted earlier. Being aggrieved, the State has preferred this appeal.

7. Mr. Ghosh, learned Addl. Public Prosecutor in support of the appeal urges, inter alia, that the State a