Point of Law; It is well settled by plethora of judicial pronouncements by this Court that suspicion, however strong cannot take the place of proof. An accused is presumed to be innocent unless proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt

JUDGMENT :

GAUTAM CHOWDHARY, J.

1. By way of these appeals the appellants have challenged the judgment and order dated 15.2.2011, passed in Sessions Trial No. 115 of 2006 (State of U.P. vs. Prem Singh and Others), arising out of Case Crime No. 318 of 2005, under Section 302 IPC, S.T. No. 116 of 2006 (State of U.P. vs. Shankar), arising out of Case Crime No. 329 of 2005, under Section-25 Arms Act and Sessions Trial No. 117 of 2006 (State of U.P. vs. Prem Singh @ Baba), arising out of Case Crime No. 25 of 2006, under Section 25 Arms Act, all cases were registered at Police Station-Allow, District Manipuri.

2. All these sessions trials were tried jointly and were decided by common judgment, whereby all the accused were convicted and sentenced for commission of offence u/s 302/34 I.P.C. for life imprisonment with fine of Rs. 10,000/- and for commission of offence u/s 25 Arms Act, accused-Shankar and Prem Singh were sentenced for two years rigorous imprisonment with fine of Rs. 1000/-.

3. Brief facts of the case are that on 19.11.2005, the informant-Krishna Murari had given a written report to the Station House Officer, P.S. Allow, District-Mainpuri, alleging therein that he has participated in V.D.C. election. One of his family members, namely, Shankar, was helping his opposite contestant Krishna Pal and opposed the informant from participating in that election but the informant participated in the alleged election at the behest of villagers, since then, Shankar was inimical and because of that resentment, on 19.11.2005 at about 11:00 a.m. when informant’s wife and son were coming from fields, Shankar came there and hurled abuses in front of Ziledar’s house. During this period, Prem Singh and Hoti Lal also came there. When the informant’s wife and son opposed, the accused-Hoti Lal instigated other accused to kill the informant’s wife and son at which all the accused, armed with country made pistol, with intention to kill the informant’s son, fired at informant’s son whereby he got one gun shot injury on his chest and another on his arm in result of which the informant’s son-Bhanwar Pal, died on spot. On 24.12.2005, S.O. Ambarish Kumar Yadav (PW-7), along with police personnel, in order to recover the country-made pistol of accused-Shankar, went to village-Nihalpur, where he summoned Karvarilal and Udayveer Singh to make them witnesses of recovery of pistol. The police party alongwith the witnesses searched out themselves personally and after satisfaction that no objectionable article was with them, they, along with the accused, went at the place pointed out by the accused-Shankar and recovered a country-made pistol. Ferd (Ex.Ka.10) was prepared and site plan (Ex.Ka-14) was also prepared. Again on 21.1.2006, S.O. Ambarish Kumar Yadav, along with police personnel, in order to recover 315 bore country-made pistol, reached village-Nihalpur, where he summoned Netrapal and Satyaram to make them witnesses of recovery. On pointing out of the accused-Prem Singh, a country-made pistol was recovered.

4. After the investigation was over, charge-sheet was filed against all the accused. As the case was exclusively triable by the court of sessions, the same was committed to the sessions court by the learned Magistrate. Charges were framed by the trial court against the accused/appellant who pleaded not guilty and claimed for trial.

5. The prosecution, in order to prove its case, examined 11 witnesses who are as under:

6. In support of the ocular version of the witnesses, following documents were produced and contents were