IMPORTANT POINTS
Order of acquittal can be reversed for very substantial and compelling reasons.
Related witnesses are not necessarily interested witness.

JUDGMENT :

N.V. Ramana, J.

1. These appeals arise out of the common judgment and order, dated 21st December, 2013, passed by the High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Bench at Nagpur, in Criminal Appeal No. 290 of 1998 whereby the High Court reversed the order of acquittal passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Amravati in Sessions Trial No. 40 of 1995 and convicted all the accused/appellants herein except accused no. 6 (since dead) for the offence punishable under Sections 147, 148, 452 read with Section 149, Section 302 read with Section 149 and Section 506 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

2. The prosecution story in short is that, on 19th June, 1995 at about 7 pm, in the village Jalka Shahapur an altercation had taken place between two villagers, namely Shamrao (deceased) and Balya (Accused No. 4) on the road near a grocery shop over repayment of Rs.50/. It was alleged that Shamrao (deceased) had slapped Balya (Accused No. 4) during the scuffle. After sometime, all the sixteen accused persons armed with weapons, while entering the house of Shamrao hurling abuses, dragged him out of the house, assaulted on his hands and legs. They are alleged to have continuously assaulted Shamrao while simultaneously dragging him to a field where they finally cut his right palm and left the place. During the course of assault by the accused, Chanda (PW1) [wife of Shamrao] followed them pleading not to hurt her husband and out of fear she took shelter in some cattle shed. Later on she went to the house of one Harshawardhan Bhalekar and informed him about the incident. Then Harshawardhan Bhalekar along with 5 PW1 proceeded to Amravati and informed about the occurrence to the family members of Shamrao. After that they went to the office of Superintendent of Police, Amravati where they were advised to lodge a complaint at Nandgaon Peth police station. Accordingly, a complaint (Ext. 55) was lodged on 20th June, 1995 being crime case No. 72 of 1995. It may be relevant to reduce a part of the FIR as under:-

Name and addresses of accused, if any :	1. Gajanan Chincholkar 2. Balya Bhagat 3. Pramod Khedkar 4. Raju Mohol +20 to 25 persons
Names and addresses of suspects :
Nature of offence with penal section. Give short descriptions of stolen property with its value if any.	The incident is that on the above dt. Time and place, when the husband of the complainant was in the home, when he went to the house of Balya Bhagat out of the accused persons herein for demanding the money of fishes, the accused persons came to the house of the husband of the accused and the accused persons have beaten and pulled from the house and on account of the said occurrence, the offence is registered and taken for investigation.

3. Dattatray Kulkarni, A.P.I. (PW17) took up the investigation and carried a search for missing Shamrao in the Jalka Shahapur village and ultimately on 21st June, 1995 on the information of one Ananda Bhurbhure, PW1 and PW17 found the dead body of Shamrao, in the fields of one Yeshwant Thawale, without his right palm which they traced at some distance. After conducting the panchanama of scene of occurrence, inquest report was drawn, clothes of the deceased were seized, statements of some witnesses were recorded and the dead body was sent to the Civil Surgeon at Amravati for postmortem. All the accused, except accused no. 16 who was stated to be absconding, were arrested and at their instance, alleged weapons used for the crime were recovered, disclosure statements recorded, seizure panchanama recorded and the accused were got medically examined. After completion of investigation, charges were framed against accused nos. 1 to 15 to which the accused pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.

4. In its effort to prove the guilt of the accused, prosecution has examined as many as 19 witnesses.