1. This criminal appeal has been preferred by the accused appellants against the judgment and order dated 6.5.1988 passed by the Vth Additional District & Sessions Judge, Jhansi in Session Trial No.148 of 1984 (State of U.P. vs. Veer Singh and others) convicting and sentencing the appellants for the offence punishable under Sections 147 IPC for one year rigorous imprisonment, for the offence under Section 304 (Part I) read with Section 149 IPC for five years rigorous imprisonment and for the offence under Sections 325 read with Section 149 IPC for two years rigorous imprisonment. All the sentences were directed to run concurrently.

2. At the outset, it is relevant to mention here that during pendency of this appeal, the appellant no.1 – Veer Singh and appellant no. 6 Ram Swarup have died. Accordingly, vide order dated 16.2.2017 this Court has abated the appeal in respect of the appellant no.1 and appellant no.6, respectively.

3. Now, the Court is proceeding to consider the present appeal in respect of rest of the appellants.

4. The facts of the case, as unfolded by the informant Mahendra in the First Information Report (in short 'F.I.R.'), are that on 23.6.1984 his father Harish Chandra and uncle Siyaram had gone to sow peanut in their fields, situated at the outskirts of village Amarpura, P.S. Raksa, District Jhansi. At about 9.00 a.m. the informant reached there with breakfast and saw his uncle and father busy in sowing the peanut. When they started to take breakfast, all of a sudden, accused Veer Singh, armed with Farsa, Nathoo armed with an Axe, Ram Swarup, armed with Lohangi, Lalloo armed with Lathi, Maniram with Lohangi, all residents of village Amarpura, Tirlok, resident of Rampura, armed with Farsa, reached there and surrounded his uncle and father. Accused Veer Singh exhorted to kill both of them as these were the persons who had taken away buffaloes last year and teased up to great extent. All the accused then started belaboring his father and uncle with their respective weapons. Informant Mahendra could not dare to go at the place of incident. At this juncture, witness Natthoo and Chainoo tried to intervene to save them but the accused persons threatened them with dire consequence so they remained on their field watching the incident. The accused left the fields with assumption that the victims were dead and threatening the witnesses that in case any body would go for report, he would be killed on the way leading to police station. The informant, therefore, could not proceed promptly to police station for lodging the report. The injured persons were taken away from the place of occurrence to the home of informant situated at Amarpura village. After two hours of reaching home, Siyaram died. Due to fear, the complainant remained there and when in the evening two constables reached his home, he was able with their help to bring the injured Harish Chandra to P.S. Raksha at 22.30 hours. The injured Harish Chandra was thereafter sent for medical examination to District Hospital Jhansi.

5. On the basis of the written report (Ext. ka-1), chik First Information Report was registered at Police Station concerned on 23.6.1984 at 22.30 hrs. mentioning all the details as had been described in Ext. Ka-.1. G.D. entry was also made at the same time, which is Ext. Ka-2.

6. Investigation started in the matter. The Investigating Officer prepared the inquest report and sent the dead body of Siyaram Yadav for post-mortem through Constable Jagdish Singh. He also took the sample of plain earth and bloodstained earth from the place of occurrence and also prepared the memo in this regard. Spot sketch (Ext. ka-16) was also prepared by the Investigating Officer. Earth seized from the place of occurrence and Pancha recovered from the dead body of Siyaram were sent for chemical examination to Agra and the chemical examiner found the presence of human blood on these two articles and sent a report (Ext. ka-19).

7. Autopsy report (Ext. ka-4) was