KARNAIL SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by special leave by Karnail Singh and Malkiat Singh against the judgment of the High Court of Punjab confirming their conviction by the Additional Sessions Judge, of Ferozepore under section 302, I.P.C. and the sentence of death passed on them.

(2.) The facts as found by the courts below are as follows: There had been longstanding enmity between the appellants and their party on the one hand and the deceased Gurbaksh Singh and his party on the other, resulting in a number of crimes, and proceedings in court. On the 27th of January 1952, at about sunset time, Gurbaksh Singh was sitting inside his house on the sabath and his sister Mst. Bholan was in the kitchen. Then the appellants and their men came to the place armed with rifles, got on the roof of the house of Gurbaksh Singh and challenged him to come out. Gurubaksh Singh and Mst. Bholan went into the kotha and bolted the door from inside. Then the appellants and their men made holes in the roof with spades, ignited inflammable materials, such as dry twigs, and threw them inside the kotha through the holes and set fire to the buildings. Both Gurbaksh Singh and Mst. Bholan were caught inside and burnt to death. A brother of Gurbaksh Singh, called Dev, who had been at that time away, was, according to the prosecution, seized when he subsequently turned up, thrown into the flames and was also burnt to death.

(3.) Two contentions have been urged on behalf of the appellants, that the evidence which had been accepted by the learned Judges as reliable was insufficient to establish the guilt of the appellants and that their conviction under S. 34 was bad as no charge had been framed against them under that section. On the first point, the argument of the learned counsel for the appellants was that having held that the only eyewitness whose evidence was worthy of credence was P. W. 13, and that even his evidence could not be acted upon unless it was corroborated, the learned Judges were in error in holding that there was such corroboration against the appellants. The circumstance relied on by the court below as corroborating the evidence of P. W. 13 was that the appellants were proved to have been present at the scene of occurrence and there was no satisfactory explanation from them therefor.