JUDGMENT

Santosh Hegde, J.-State of Madhya Pradesh has preferred this appeal against a judgment of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur Bench.

2. While granting leave to this appeal, this court by its order dated 22nd April, 1996 confined the same only as against the first respondent.

3. The prosecution case from which this appeal arises is as follows : The respondent in this appeal and two others were chargesheeted by the Maharajpur police for an offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC for having committing the murder of Bati in the intervening night between 10 and 11 of April, 1985, while the said Bati was sleeping in his thrashing yard along with his brother Suraj Prakash (PW 1) and his uncle Nand Ram (PW 3). Prosecution alleged that at that time the three accused persons attacked the deceased with deadly weapons like axe, farsa etc. and the deceased died instantaneously. It is stated that PWs 1 and 3, being afraid of the assailants, did not move away from the place where they hid themselves and later in the morning at about 8 O clock they informed the other relatives including Nathu Ram (PW 4), father of the deceased and the information as to the crime was lodged at Maharajpur police station at about 8.15 A.M. and the police station was about 3 k.ms. away from the place of incident. During the course of investigation, the prosecution alleges that they recovered blood stained clothes worn by A-1 as also a blood stained axe which was used in attacking the deceased.

4. The trial court, accepting the prosecution case convicted the three persons for offences punishable under Section 302 IPC read with Section 34 IPC. The trial Court imposed the sentence of imprisonment for life on the said accused.

5. It was against the said judgment of the Sessions Judge Chhatarpur, the accused filed an appeal to the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur in Crl.A.No. 60 of 1996. The High Court on re-appreciation of the evidence by the impugned judgment came to the conclusion that the prosecution has failed to establish a case against the accused hence acquitted the accused.

6. As stated above it is against the said judgment of acquittal the State has preferred this Appeal and this Court at the time of granting leave has confined the leave to appeal as against the first respondent only who was the first accused in the Trial Court. Shri R.P. Gupta, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the State contended that the Trial Court has meticulously considered the evidence on record and accepted the eye witnesses version of PW 1 and PW 3 and has further relied upon the recoveries made at the instance of first accused. He also submitted that little contradictions and embellishments even if present in the evidence of these witnesses have been dealt with by the Trial court which came to the conclusion that these contradictions would not in any manner make the prosecution case unbelievable, hence it based a conviction on the said evidence led by the prosecution. He submitted in such cases the High Court should not sit as a court of appeal and interfere with the judgment and finding of the trial court by re-appreciation of the evidence and substituting its own subjective satisfaction. It was the contention of the said learned counsel that the presence of PWs 1 and 3 at the place of incident was natural and they did not have any grievance or motive to implicate the accused falsely.

7. Shri S.K. Dhingra, learned counsel appearing for the respondent countered the said argument and submitted that the finding of the trial court is on wrong appeciation of evidence and evidence of PWs 1 and 2 are so artificial and so full of contradictions that no reasonable person would place any reliance on such evidence to base a conviction.

8. Having heard the arguments of the learned counsel and perused the record, we notice that the prosecution relies on evidence of PWs 1 and 3 as eye witnesses and also on the recoveries allegedly made at the instanc