JUDGMENT :

Vinod Chandran, J.

Pliable and prevaricating witnesses question the credibility of the criminal judicial system and test the skill of adjudicators and stretch their patience to breaking point. An inept prosecution and an equally abject defense does not serve the cause of justice delivery; which problems are at times compounded by an indifferent Court. The trial of a seemingly open and shut case, of a murder committed in the open and in public view has been complicated by witnesses of the aforementioned category. An enquiry into whether it is on purpose or on threat or purchase, obviously is beyond our ken. But all the same, we have to sift the grain from the chaff and find out the truth as discernible from the evidence on record.

2. The appellant-accused, according to the prosecution, stabbed the deceased on account of the latter having taken up cudgels against the illicit liquor sale conducted by the former. The immediate provocation is also alleged to be a shove delivered by the deceased to the accused, on his approaching a fast food shop wherein the accused was also present. The accused took the knife kept in the fast food shop and stabbed his alleged enemy to death. Thi