The intent to commit murder must be proven beyond reasonable doubt, and in this case, it was established that the act fell under grievous hurt.

JUDGMENT

This appeal is filed by the appellant/accused under Section 374(2) of Cr.P.C. for setting aside the judgment of conviction and order of sentence passed by the Principal Sessions Judge, Chikmagalur, in S.C.No.69/2010 vide judgment dated 07.02.2012. The appellant was found guilty and convicted and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for 7 years for the offence punishable under Section 307 of IPC , 1 month for the offence punishable under Section 341 of IPC and 1 year for the offence punishable under Section 504 of IPC .

2. Heard the arguments of learned counsel for the appellant and learned High Court Government Pleader for the respondent-State.

3. The rank of the parties before the trial Court is retained for the sake of convenience.

4. The case of the prosecution is that on the complaint of PW.1-Omkarappa, whose statement was recorded by the Police in the hospital on 16.03.2010, it is alleged that as per Ex.P.1 that on 15.03.2010 in the evening at about 6.00 p.m., he was driving the tractor, the accused came in front of complainant's motorcycle by staring at him and in the night, at about 10.00 p.m., when the complainant and others were dancing in front of the procession of Narasimhaswamy in the village fair, the accused with an intention to commit murder, came and picked up quarrel, abused him in filthy language and squeezed his testicles and caused inner injuries to the vital part. The eye witnesses one Ananda, Rama, Murthy and Kumara were pacified the quarrel and shifted PW.1-injured to the hospital, where MLC was sent to the police, in turn, the police recorded the statement and registered the FIR in Crime No.26/2010. The accused was arrested and sent to the judicial custody, later he was released on bail. The investigation was completed and charge-sheet has been filed against him. The accused pleaded not guilty when charges were framed for the above said offences, he claimed to be tried. Accordingly, the prosecution examined 10 witnesses as per PWs.1 to 10 and 9 documents as per Exs.P.1 to P.9 and after closing the evidence, the statement of the accused was recorded under Section 313 of Cr.P.C. The case of the accused is one of the total denial, but not chosen to adduce any evidence. After hearing the arguments, the trial Court found the accused guilty, convicted and sentenced for imprisonment as stated above. Being aggrieved by the same, the appellant is before this Court.

5. The learned counsel for the appellant has contended that the judgment of conviction and order of sentence passed by the trial Court is not in accordance with law and the alleged eye witnesses were all not seen the incident. They came after the victim fell down and therefore, it cannot be said that they are the eye witnesses. There are some contradictions in the evidence of the eye witnesses. The doctors-PWs.5 and 6 have not stated anything about the injury caused to the complainant as it would endanger the life. All the witnesses are the interested witnesses. Therefore, the evidence of those witnesses cannot be ruled out. In the cross examination, the witnesses have stated there were thousands of people gathered in the village fair and procession, it is very difficult to identify the accused by the witnesses, they have not seen him and also not seen the quarrel, except shifting him to the hospital. Therefore, prayed for allowing the appeal.

6. Per contra, learned High Court Government Pleader supported the judgment of conviction and order of sentence passed by the trial Court and contended that PW.1 is the injured eye witness and PW.3 is an eye