Ong Hock Thye FJ:

The first appellant was convicted of the offence of voluntarily causing grievous hurt to one Nagarachnam (f) by means of an axe, contrary to s. 326 of the Penal Code, and was sentenced to imprisonment for three years. He was further charged, together with the second appellant, under ss. 109 and 326 of the Penal Code for abetment of another similar offence, committed by the third appellant and upon conviction they each received a sentence of 18 months imprisonment. The third appellant was convicted, under s. 326, of voluntarily causing grievous hurt to Ramasamy, husband of Nagarachnam, by means of an iron rod and was sentenced to six years imprisonment.

All the appellants were rubber-tappers; the first appellant is a son of the third appellant and the second appellant was their next-door neighbour. None of them had any previous convictions. The two injured persons, the appellants and all the alleged eye-witnesses lived in the labour lines of Jugra Estate. Ramasamy was a committee member of the workers union. Most of the other eye-witnesses were officers of the union or their relatives and friends.

On 13 August 1964, the day before the events that led to the prosecution, Muniandy (PW7), Pandurengan (PW10) and Ramasamy (PW3) had made a complaint of black magic against the first appellant to Joseph Mamen (DW8) the estate contractor who was an independent witness. Muniandy told Mamen that unless he could put an end to such black magic there would be a fight. Three hours later, at 5 p.m. the first appellant with two others complained to Mamen that they had been waylaid and threatened. Mamen's evidence stood uncontradicted.

There were two conflicting versions of what happened at about 8 a.m. the next morning, 14 August 1964. According to all the material prosecution witnesses there was only a wordy quarrel between a female named Thanapakiam and the family of the first and third appellants, which was followed by an unprovoked attack, first, on Nagarachnam by the first appellant with an axe, and then, on Ramasamy with an iron rod. The other version, by the defence, was that there was a general array involving many more people than were said to have been active participants in the prosecution story of the incident. In fact eight persons were injured, namely, the complainants Nagarachnam and Ramasamy, Pavadai (the third appellant), Letchumi (his wife), Ponnamah, Mariayee, Muniandy (the first appellant), Muniandy s/o Rajoo (PW7) and Rajagopal s/o Muniandy (Pavadai). If the prosecution witnesses were telling the unadulterated truth, there was no accounting for the injuries of at least half the number of injured persons. The learned Judge, it is true, said:

I was satisfied that the third accused was not injured before PW2 and PW3 (that is Nagarachnam and Ramasamy) had received their injuries. There were indications from the evidence that the fight continued. It was not for me to decide who hit the third accused, but if anybody hit him at all, it must have been PW7 who was hardly likely to admit anything that was going to incriminate him. PW3, in my opinion, assaulted no one ......

In our view this opinion failed entirely to take into account the evidence given by the defence which explained the injuries of each and every one of the eight persons named. It seems to us, therefore, that the defence story was at least consistent with the facts, whereas that of the prosecution plainly was not. Where there was suppressio veri then suggestio falsi was inevitable.

The learned trial Judge, in his judgment, went through the evidence of the prosecution witnesses seriatim and then said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that a prima facie case had been made out. He considered the evidence of Nagarachnam (PW2), Ramasamy (PW3) and Ganga (PW4) absolutely unshaken in cross-examination; he had no reason to doubt the evidence of the two sons of Thanapakiam (PW6 & 7) and he had no hesitation in accepting their evidence "