Judgment

B.N. AGRAWAL, J.- The appellants of these two appeals along with the f accused Bhajan Singh @ Harbhajan Singh and Meharban Singh were accused in a case under Section 302 of the Penal Code (for short "IPC") but as the accused Meharban Singh died during trial, the remaining three accused persons were tried and by its judgment the trial court acquitted the accused Bhajan Singh @ Harbhajan Singh whereas these two appellants were convicted under Section 302 IPC and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for 9 life and to pay a fine of Rs 2000 each, in default to undergo further imprisonment for a period of six months. Against the order of acquittal of the accused Harbhajan Singh, no appeal was filed by the State whereas on appeal being filed by the appellants, the High Court confirmed their conviction and sentence. The revision application filed by the private prosecutor for enhancement of sentence has been rejected by the High Court.

2. Prosecution case, in short, was that Kuljit Singh @ Billa was a student of BA Part I in Arya College, Ludhiana and he was a witness in a case filed for prosecution of the appellant Gurpreet Singh under Section 307 IPC which was pending. On 22-1-1990 at about 5.30 p.m., Kuljit Singh along with his brother Harvinder Singh and friends Parminder Singh (PW 2) and Gurvinder Singh (PW 3) was returning to his house after attending classes from Guru Angad Dev College and when they reached near Oriental Public School, the appellants along with the accused Meharban Singh, who were present there armed with kirpans, confronted him. The appellant Gurpreet Singh shouted that Kuljit Singh should be done to death and he attacked him with kirpan on his head. Thereafter, the appellant Mohinder Pal Singh @ Vicky inflicted kilpan-blow in the abdomen of Kuljit Singh. The accused Meharban Singh assaulted him with kirpan on the temporal region whereupon Kuljit Singh fell down. In the meantime, the accused Harbhajan Singh who too was armed with kirpan came there and also dealt a kirpan-blow on the forehead of Kuljit Singh. All the aforesaid accused persons thereafter inflicted several injuries upon Kuljit Singh even after he fell down. In the process of inflicting injuries, the appellant Gurpreet Singh also received injuries at the hands of one of the co-accused. On halla being raised, people of the locality arrived whereafter the accused persons fled away. Kuljit Singh was taken to Christian Medical Hospital by PW 3 and Harvinder Singh where the doctor declared him dead. Thereupon, Harvinder Singh, who was brother of Kuljit Singh, the deceased, left for the police station but on Brown Road, near Christian Medical Hospital, he met Sub-Inspector Bakshish Singh (PW 8) who recorded his statement stating therein the afotesaid facts and sent the same to the police station where a case was registered against all the aforesaid four accused persons, including the appellants on the same day at 7.15 p.m.

3. The police after registering the case took up the investigation and on completion thereof submitted charge-sheet against the accused persons, on receipt whereof, the learned Magistrate took cognizance and committed all the aforesaid accused persons, including the appellants, to the Court of Session to face trial. As the accused Meharban Singh died during trial, the same proceeded against the remaining three accused persons.

4. Defence of the accused persons was that they were innocent and were falsely implicated in the case in hand. Specific defence of the appellants was that when they were going to the shop of the appellant Gurpreet Singh and arrived at Jail Road at the time of the present occurrence, Kuljit Singh and his brother Upkar Singh were coming from the opposite direction along with one unknown person and out of them, Kuljit Singh asked his companions to kill the appellant Gurpreet Singh whereupon, he was chased and surrounded by Kuljit Singh and others and out of them, Upkar Singh stabbed Gurpreet Singh with his kni