IMPORTANT POINT
A related witness is not necessarily interested witness.

JUDGMENT :

N.V. RAMANA, J.

1. This appeal is directed against the Judgment dated 13th December, 2011 passed by the High Court of Judicature at Madras in Criminal Appeal No. 346 of 2011 whereby the Division Bench of the High Court dismissed the appeal preferred by the appellant herein and upheld his conviction and sentence passed by the Trial Court for the offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34, IPC.

2. Prosecution case in brief is that Selvam @ Thangaraj (deceased), Karuppusamy (A1) and Sadayappan @ Ganesan (A2/appellant herein) were neighbouring agricultural land owners in the village of Kandavayal who used to go together for hunting of rabbits in the nearby forest area. Around 15 years prior to the incident, the deceased Thangaraj had negotiated to buy some agricultural land from A1 and paid him Rs. 30,000/- towards the sale value and took possession of the said land. However, despite repeated requests, A1 had never come forward for registering the sale deed in favour of the deceased. Owing to this, A1 and the deceased developed animosity towards each other. A2—appellant herein is the adjacent landowner who always supported A1 in avoiding registration of the sale deed. Despite animosity against the deceased, A1 and A2 kept on going to the forest for hunting along with him. On May 27, 2008 at about 11 p.m., both A1 and A2 went to the house of deceased and insisted that he accompany them to the fields/forest. Eventually, the deceased went with them hesitatingly. When the deceased did not return home till 4 am in the morning, his wife—Rajammal (PW1) sent one Palanisamy (PW2—brother of the deceased) and Govindarajan (PW3— nephew of the deceased) to search for her husband. PWs 2 and 3, while searching for the deceased, found his dead body near the fields with bleeding injuries. They immediately rushed to PW1 and informed her of the same.

3. On a complaint given by PW1, the Sub-Inspector of Police (PW14) at Sirumugai Police Station registered the crime under Section 302, IPC and Section 25 (1B)(a) of the Indian Arms Act against the accused. The Assistant Commissioner of Police (PW15—Pandian) took up the investigation and after completing the formalities of holding inquest and preparing inquest report (Ext. P21), sent the body of the deceased for postmortem. On August 29, 2008 the accused appeared before the Village Administrative Officer (VAO) and confessed to committing the crime. When the VAO produced the accused with their confessional statements, the I.O. arrested them and at their instance recovered material objects including Single Barrel Muzzle Loading Gun (MO1), torch light with battery, blood stained and normal soil, torn clothes, lungi, towel etc. and sent them for chemical analysis. Subsequently, the learned Judicial Magistrate committed the case to the Principal District and Sessions Judge, Coimbatore who framed charges against the accused-appellant under Section 302 read with Section 34, IPC. The appellant denied the charges and claimed to be tried.

4. After an elaborate trial, the Trial Judge opined that the circumstantial evidence correlates with the accused and clearly proves that owing to prior enmity, A1 and A2, in furtherance of their common intention, committed the murder of the deceased with a gun shot from the unauthorized gun owned by accused-appellant. The Trial Court thereby found both the accused guilty and accordingly convicted the appellant herein under Section 302 read with Section 34, IPC and sentenced him to life imprisonment and also to pay a fine of Rs. 10,000 vide order dated 18.05.2011. Both the accused preferred an appeal before the High Court which was dismissed vide order dated December 13, 2011. Aggrieved thereby, both the accused preferred separate appeals before this Court. It is pertinent to state that the appeal of the A1 stood abated owing to his death during its pendency. Thus, we are now concerned only with the appeal preferred by A2.

5. Learned counsel appearing on behalf