JUDGMENT :

G.B. Pattnaik, J. - This is a convict's appeal from jail who has been convicted by the Sessions Judge, Koraput, u/s 302, Indian Penal Code, and has been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life for having committed the murder of one Lokanath Bisoi by means of a knife (M. O. I). After stating the facts, findings of Court below and contentions of the counsel, His Lordship observed :

8. Coming now to the eye-witnesses P. Ws. 2 and 3, we find that both of them have stated that the accused and the deceased picked up quarrel and all on a sudden the accused stabbed the deceased on his neck by a knife which was identified to be M. O. I whereafter the deceased fell down after covering a distance of 30 cubits. The evidence of the two eye-witnesses is consistent and corroborates each other and nothing has been elicited from their cross-examination to cast any doubt about their testimony. Mr. Das, the learned counsel for the appellant, however, contends that this evidence must be rejected since it runs counter to the medical evidence. In the cross-examination of the doctor, it has been elicited that the injury No. 1 found on the neck of the dead body cannot be caused by stabbing with a knife like M. O. I, though in answer to a question from the Court the doctor had opined that the cut injury found on the dead body can be caused by sharp edge of a knife like M. O. I. According to Mr. Das, since both the eye-witnesses, namely, P. Ws. 2 and 3 categorically stated that the accused stabbed the deceased by the knife and since the doctor is of the opinion that the injury on the neck cannot be caused by stabbing, there is no option left with the Court than to reject the oral testimony of the two eye-witnesses as untrustworthy. In support of the aforesaid contention the learned counsel placed reliance on a decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Purshottam and Another Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh. The Supreme Court, no doubt in the aforesaid case came to hold :

"In the ordinary course of human events and experience also, it was extremely improbable, if not altogether impossible, that three blows simultaneously given by three different persons from different directions with sharp edged weapons would land with such precision and exactitude so as to cause a single wound of such clean-cut margins and such dimensions and other characteristics as those of the external wound found by Dr. Jain (P. W. 10) on the head of the deceased. The version of P. W. 1 and P. W. 2 with regard to the vital fact was inherently improbable and intrinsically incredible. It could not be accepted in preference to the evidence of the medical expert."

In our opinion, the ratio of the aforesaid case has absolutely no application to the facts and circumstances of the present case. The oral evidence in this case is to the effect that the accused stabbed on the neck of the deceased with the knife (M.O. I). Even the doctor in answer to the question from the Court also stated that the injury found on the dead body can be caused by sharp edge of a knife like M. O. I. The only thing on which the counsel for the appellant relies is the statement of the doctor in cross examination that the injury in question cannot be caused by stabbing with M. O. I. The matter has not been further clarified thereafter. The nature of injuries as found by the doctor is that the internal jugular vein, carotid artery and superior thyroid artery were found to be cut on the left side. From the injuries itself, here cannot be any doubt that all these injuries are not possible by one thrust. Why the doctor said that the injuries were not possible by stabbing has not been elicited from him, but possibly because he found the injuries to be an incised one.

9. It has been stated in Modi's Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology that an incised wound is produced by sharp cutting instrument such as a knife, which has a sharp cutting pointed or linear edge and the cutting edge of a knife may be compl