ORDER

1. Appellant five in number, in both the appeals, feeling aggrieved by the judgment and order of conviction dated 7/5/2008 passed in Criminal Appeal No.919-DB/2006 by Division Bench of High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh, arising out of the judgment and order of conviction dated 24/11/2006 and order of sentence dated 25/11/2006 pronounced by Additional Sessions Judge, Bhiwani, convicting them for commission of offences under Sections 302/149 of the IPC and awarding sentence to undergo RI for life, together with fine of Rs.2,000/-, are before us challenging the same on variety of grounds.

2. It may be mentioned herein that initially charge-sheet was filed only against four accused namely Nanhar, Virender @ Binder, Rampat and Rajbir @ Meda under Sections 306/34 IPC. The name of the fifth accused Umed Singh was added subsequently by the Trial Court on an application being filed by the prosecution under Section 319 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and allowed on 3.6.2004. The order of committal makes it clear that the first four appellants were charged and prosecuted for commission of offence under Sections 306/34 IPC. Accordingly it was committed to Court of Sessions for being tried for the aforesaid offences. However, on 5.10.2004 charge was framed by the learned Trial Judge under Sections 302/34 IPC. Even though Umed Singh was added subsequently as one of the accused but the charge was not altered to one under Section 149 of the I.P.C.

3. Thumbnail sketch of the facts of the case is as under:

Kartar Singh elder brother of Vijay deceased had filed an application on 27/2/2004 before the Superintendent of Police Bhiwani, alleging therein that he is resident of village Malkosh Tehsil Charkhi Dadri, District Bhivani and has been serving Armed forces for last 20 years. He has a residential house of his own in Rewari Town wherein his family and aged mother are residing. His younger brother Vijay, the deceased, was residing in Malkosh and was looking after the agricultural land owned by them. One Bhajani wife of Roop Ram, of the same village was on visiting terms to the house of Vijay as he was having small flour mill in his house. She used to come for grinding of wheat. In the course of time she developed family relations with Vijay. There was a rumour in the village that she had forced her own daughter-in-law Kamlesh, wife of Rampat, one of the accused herein, to have illicit relations with deceased Vijay. In lieu whereof it was said that she had received a sum of Rs. 1,000/- from Vijay. It was also the case of the prosecution that Vijay and Kamlesh wife of Rampat - appellant No.3 were seen in the field by many villagers and they had a doubt about their relationship. In fact, their relationship had become talk of the village. Rampat, the accused, came to know about the said relationship. Therefore, he along with other co-accused Nanhar Virender and Rajbir decided to finish Vijay. On coming to know about the motive of the accused, Vijay had left village Malkosh for some time.

4. It was further mentioned that aforesaid four accused had told PW.11 Dalip, uncle of deceased Vijay, about their intention. They wanted to take revenge with Vijay on account of his relationship with Kamlesh, wife of Rampat. They further informed that this illicit relationship will not be tolerated by them and therefore they are planning to kill Vijay.

5. On 24/2/2004 PW.7 Sudesh, cousin of deceased Vijay informed PW.9 Kartar Singh, on telephone that Vijay has been murdered and his dead body was lying in his field. It was further informed that some poisonous substance was administered to Vijay by accused Nanhar, Virender and Rajvir and Rampat. He was asked to reach Malkosh from Rewari immediately. On the same night, Kartar Singh reached village Malkosh and found his brother dead. On enquiries being made by him it was found from the villagers that he has been done away with by administering poisonous substance to him by aforesaid persons. Thi