IMPORTANT POINT
The appellate court upheld the trial court's acquittal, emphasizing the necessity of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, particularly when eyewitness testimony is unreliable.

JUDGMENT :

1. This criminal appeal under Section 378 (iii) and (i) of the Cr.P.C. has been preferred by the appellant-State laying a challenge to the judgment of acquittal dated 09.05.1996, passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Bali, District - Pali in Sessions Case No.17/1995, whereby the accused-respondents were acquitted of the offence under Section 302/34 of the Indian Penal Code.

2. The matter pertains to an incident which had occurred on 17.02.1995 and the present appeal has been pending since the year 1995.

3. Brief facts of the case, as placed before this Court by Mr. Sameer Pareek, learned Public Prosecutor appearing on behalf of the appellant-State are that on 17.02.1995, in the evening at about 08:00 p.m. in village Kothar, Bhaga Ram was attacked by the present accused-respondents Mangi Lal and Madan Lal with an axe and knife and that injuries were caused on his neck, chest and rest of the body parts, which were dangerous to life and due to the said injuries, he passed away. It was reported that Smt. Rambha Devi, mother of the deceased and Smt. Sukhi, wife of the deceased saw the incident and they stated that the injuries were caused by the accused-respondents.

4. On the basis of the information (Ex.P/15) given by PW Smt. Rambha Devi, mother of the deceased, an FIR bearing No.10/1995 was lodged at P.S. Nana, District - Pali. After completion of investigation, the police filed the charge-sheet against the accused-respondents for the offence under Section 302/34 of the Indian Penal Code and the trial commenced accordingly.

5. During the course of trial, the evidence of 18 prosecution witnesses were recorded and 30 documents were exhibited on behalf of the prosecution and two defence documents were exhibited on behalf of the accused-respondents. The accused-respondents were examined under Section 313 Cr.P.C., in which they pleaded innocence and their false implication in the criminal case in question.

6. Thereafter, upon hearing the contentions of both the parties as well as after considering the material and evidence placed on record, the learned Trial Court, acquitted the accused-respondents, vide the impugned judgment of acquittal dated 09.05.1996, against which the present appeal has been preferred on behalf of the appellant-State.

7. Mr. Sameer Pareek, learned Public Prosecutor appearing on behalf of the appellant-State submits that out of the 18 witnesses examined by the prosecution, the core witnesses are PW-7 – Smt. Sukhi (wife of the deceased) and PW-11 – Smt. Rambha Devi (mother of the deceased) who were examined as the eye witnesses in the present case. It is further submitted by the learned Public Prosecutor that both wife and mother of the deceased had rushed to the spot after they were informed by Panna Lal but the said Panna Lal has never been examined by the prosecution. Learned Public Prosecutor submits that other witnesses who are crucial to the case namely, PW-3 – Ramesh Kumar, PW-4 – Kapoora Ram and PW-5 – Bheema Ram turned hostile and did not support the prosecution story.

7.1 Learned Public Prosecutor also submits that though the Doctor who conducted the postmortem has not been examined and that there are other discrepancies but still there is a strong evidence of eye witnesses which have supported the case and there is no reason to disbelieve their testimonies. Learned Public Prosecutor has taken this Court to the cross-examination of PW-7 – Smt. Sukhi (wife of the deceased) and PW-11 – Smt. Rambha Devi (mother of the deceased), both the eye witnesses in their evidence stated that Panna Lal came to their house and told them that Mangi Lal (deceased) was being beaten and when they rushed to the spot, they found that the accused-respondent Madan Lal was stabbing the deceased with knife and that the other accused-respondent Mangi Lal was also hitting him. Both the witnesses have deposed that they made hue and cry upon which Bheema, Ramesh and Kapoora rushed to the spot.

7.2 Learned Public Prosecut