JUDGMENT

Dipak Misra, J.

The two appeals have been preferred by the accused- appellants against the common judgment dated 28.10.2005 in Criminal Appeal No. 937/1999 by the High Court of Karnataka at Bangalore whereby the Division Bench has overturned the judgment of acquittal passed by the learned Ist Addl. Sessions Judge, Gulbarga, in S.C. No. 100/1995 acquitting all the accused persons of the offences under Sections 143, 147, 448, 302, 201 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code (for short ‘IPC’) and convicted the accused-appellants for the said offences. For the offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 149 of IPC, each of them was sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life, and to pay a fine of Rs.5,000/-, in default of payment of fine, to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of one year. In respect of other offences, no separate sentence was imposed by the High Court.

2. Sans unnecessary details, the prosecution case is that the deceased, Karemma, was the wife of Mallinath, son of Ningawwa. After the unfortunate demise of Mallinath, dispute arose between Ningawwa, the mother-in-law of the deceased, and deceased Karemma, relating to certain landed propert