Witness reliability is crucial in criminal cases; if a witness is deemed unreliable, their testimony cannot support a conviction without corroboration.

Nand Prabha Shukla, J.

1. Heard Sri V.P. Srivastava, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Araf Khan, learned counsel appearing for the appellant; Sri Amit Sinha, learned Additional Government Advocate for the State and Sri Satish Trivedi, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Ajay Kumar Pandey, learned counsel appearing for the informant.

2. When one Ashraf was killed on 24.09.1997 allegedly at 09:00 AM, a first information report was got lodged on 24.09.1997 by his maternal uncle, Afzal, at Police Station – Simbhawali, Gadhmukhteshwar, District – Ghaziabad.

3. As per the first information report, the incident had taken place at 09:00 AM and the first information report was lodged at 10:15 AM. Upon the lodging of the first information report, investigation commenced and thereafter the accused persons named in the first information report namely Kamal son of Jamaluddin, Kamil and Khursheed sons of Bhure, Naufeel son of Shakur who allegedly were on a jeep and also Afsar and Asif sons of Manjoor who were made accused in the case and were on a motorcycle surrendered on different dates and they were arrested. When the investigation commenced, there were certain statements, of the eye-witnesses whose names were mentioned in the first information report, recorded under Section 161 of the Cr.P.C. Statements of certain witnesses were also recorded under Section 164 of Cr.P.C. before the relevant magistrate. During investigation the police on 24.09.1997 itself had recovered four empty cartridges of 315 bore which were found on the spot. The recovery memo was numbered as Exhibit Ka-6. Initially however when all the accused persons were not surrendering then by coercive measures the police had searched them out and arrested them.

4. It is the case of the prosecution that while the deceased, Ashraf, who was accompanied by the PW-1, Muslim, was going on a motorcycle in the village Simbhawali then a jeep carrying four persons namely Kamal, Kamil, Khursheed and Naufeel came in front of the two, namely Ashraf and PW-2, Muslim. Because of the fact that their way was intercepted by the jeep, the motorcycle slowed down and in the meantime another motorcycle carrying Ashraf and Asif came from behind and thereafter the six accused persons who were also the assailants and were carrying country made pistols fired upon the deceased, Ashraf. It is the further case of the prosecution that thereafter PW-2, Muslim, jumped from the motorcycle and ran to inform the maternal uncle of Ashraf namely one Afzal and the latter thereafter had gone to the police station to get the first information report lodged. Upon the matter having been reported, the police had got the post-mortem of the deceased done on 25.09.1997. After the investigation had come to an end, the police had submitted its charge-sheet.

5. Upon the completion of the investigation when the chargesheet was submitted by the police, the Court of 13^th Additional Sessions Judge, Ghaziabad on 20.01.1999 framed charges for the offences under Section 147, 148 and 307 of I.P.C. against the accused persons namely Kamil, Afsar Ali, Naufeel, Asif Ali and Khursheed. Alongwith those sections charges were also framed under Sections 302 read with section 149 of I.P.C. Charges vis-a-vis the accused, Kamal were framed separately.

When the accused denied the charges, trial commenced.

6. From the side of the prosecution as many as eleven prosecution witnesses were produced. For the assistance of the court, one court witness Vijendra Singh, the Investigating Officer of the CBCID, was produced and from the side of the defence five defence witnesses were also produced.

7. PW-1, Afzal, is the maternal uncle of the deceased Ashraf. He, in his examination-in-chief, had stated that the incident had taken place on 24.09.1997 and had further stated that his nephew (Bhanja) Ashraf, the deceased, was resident of village Jisauri, Police Station – Mundali, District – Meerut but he had for the most of the time stayed with