ORDER :

1. Leave granted.

2. This appeal is directed against the judgment of the Assam High Court dated 14/12/2006 whereby the conviction of the appellants recorded by the Sessions Judge under Section 302/34 of the IPC has been confirmed by the High Court.

3. As per the prosecution story at about 11.30 p.m. on the night of 11th October, 1999 four persons, the appellants herein, entered the house of Khalilur Rehman and committed his murder. The motive for the offence apparently was a land dispute between the deceased and the appellants. The incident was witnessed by Atabjan Nessa PW. 1 and Saida Khatun PW. 3, the wife and daughter of the deceased respectively. The alarm raised by them attracted several other persons including Md. Moinul Haque (PW. 6) a relative and neighbour of the deceased and his father Dilowar (PW. 2) and several other persons as well. On the information received by Md. Moinul Haque (PW. 6) he rushed to the police station and lodged the report a short time later. Sadananda Hazarika (PW. 8) the Investigating Officer and the Station House Officer of Police station Abhayapuri reached the place of incident early next morning and made the necessary inquiries. As he suspected that the four appellants had been involved in the murder he made a search for them but without success. He also seized various items relevant to the investigation from the place of incident and sent the body for the postmortem examination which was carried out on the next day and it is found that the death had been caused by the severance of the neck of the deceased. On the completion of the investigation the appellants were charged for an offence punishable under Section 302/34 of the IPC and as they pleaded not guilty they were brought to trial.

4. The trial Court relying on the evidence of PWs. 1 and 3, the wife and daughter of the deceased, as corroborated by the evidence of PWs. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 held that the case against the accused appellants had been proved. The plea of the defence that the FIR and the inquest proceedings recorded on the next day did not contain the names of the assailants was explained away by observing that PW. 1 had been rendered unconscious at the time of the murder and had not been in a position to give all details as to the incident. For arriving at this conclusion the trial Court relied on the evidence of Moinul Haque (PW. 6) who had deposed that PW. 1 had been rendered unconscious and had remained in that position till the next morning. The Court also found that the four assailants had arrived in the residential house of the deceased at dead of night to settle scores over the land dispute and as such the common intention to commit murder had also been proved. An appeal was thereafter taken to the High Court which has by its judgment dated 14/12/2006 confirmed the decision of the trial Court. It is in this situation that these two matters are before us.

5. Mr. A.H. Laskar, the learned counsel for the appellants, has raised primarily one issue before us. He has pointed out that the observation of the trial Court and the High Court that the statements of PWs. 1 and 3 had precedence over any other evidence and could not be ignored under any circumstance was erroneous as the parties were well known to each other being immediate neighbours but had still not been named in the FIR and inquest proceedings. The learned counsel seeks to draw the inference that though the incident did happen at the time alleged but the assailants had not been identified at that time and it was thereafter on suspicion that they had been roped in.

6. Mr. J.R. Luwang, the State counsel has, however, urged that the statements of PWs. 1 and 3 could not be disbelieved for the simple reason that the incident had happened in the residential house and the presence of the family at dead of night was natural and that there was no occasion to involve the present appellants in a false case.

7. We have considered the arguments of the learned counsel. PW. 1