In cases of spontaneous fights, individuals are responsible for the injuries they cause and cannot claim self-defense if engaged in mutual aggression.

Horwill, J.

1. Six persons were charged before the Sessions Judge of Kurnool of rioting armed with deadly weapons, of murder, either because they killed a man themselves, or constructively by virtue of Section 149, Indian Penal Code, and of offences punishable under Section 323, Indian Penal Code. All the accused were acquitted of all the charges, with the solitary exception that the appellant, who was the fourth accused in the Sessions Court, was found guilty under Section 326 of causing the fatal injury on the deceased person. He was sentenced to three years rigorous imprisonment.

2. A number of persons of the prosecution party and the accused gathered to fight against one another and both parties sustained casualties. P. Ws. 3 to 6, the principal members of the party of the deceased asserted that the accused were entirely the aggressors. P. Ws. 7 to 9 belonged to neither party and appeared casually at the scene. Their account of what happened differed considerably from that of P. Ws. 3 to 6, in that they deposed that the first accused passed by the house of P. W. 3 and said to him, " Last evening you challenged me to go past your house for water. Now I have come," thus inviting P. W. 3 to attempt to try to prevent him from taking water. Not unnaturally P. W. 3 accepted the challenge. He was joined by P. Ws. 4 to 6, and the first accused was joined by accused 2 to 6. After an exchange of strong abuse, the deceased man stooped down to pick a stone, whereupon the fourth accused threw a stone at the head of the deceased and caused fatal injuries. The second accused then struck the deceased on the right arm with a stick which caused the deceased man to fall down. The other accused thereafter began to throw stones on the prosecution party and eventually succeeded in driving them from the field of battle.

3. The learned Sessions Judge disbelieved the evidence of P. Ws. 3-6 and based his conviction of the fourth accused exclusively on the evidence of P. Ws. 7 to 9. P. Ws. 7 to 9 are not perfect witnesses. Their evidence can be criticised; but I agree with the learned Sessions Judge that the value of their evidence lies in the moderation with which it is given. They did not attempt to support the whole of the prosecution story. They give an account of the affair which throws the blame fairly equally on the two sides; and the fact that they agree with one another, affords very strong corroboration of their story, in that there is no reason why any one of these three witnesses should desire to support the other two. The learned Sessions Judge also thinks their evidence agrees with the story given by the accused 1 to 4 themselves, though naturally these accused are not willing to throw any responsibility upon themselves. The learned Sessions Judge therefore came to the not unreasonable conclusion that the party of the accused and the party of P. Ws. 3 to 6 and the deceased indulged in a spontaneous fight in which each person was responsible for the injuries that he caused.

4. The judgment of the learned Sessions Judge has been attacked primarily because of his finding that the prosecution story that the fifth and sixth accused had participated in the attack on the deceased and P. Ws. 3 to 6 had been proved to be false. It was therefore argued that if P. Ws. 7 to 9 had falsely implicated the fifth and the sixth accused, their evidence ought to be viewed with so much suspicion that it could not be accepted. I do not however feel the same certainty as the learned Sessions Judge that the fifth and sixth accused were not present. The learned Sessions Judge gives no reason at all for finding that the fifth accused was not present, except that he says,

it is significant that P. W. 10 who has been given up by the prosecution as hostile has been stating from the very beginning that accused 5 and 6 were not present and that all P. Ws. 7 and 9 allege is that they were present in the crowd which gathered after the occurrence had started.

I do no