- (1.) Fifteen (15) accused were sent for trial for commission of various offences including the offence punishable under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 ("IPC" for short) for the murder of one Umanath (deceased) which had occurred at about 10.45 p.m. on 10th March, 2007. The learned trial Court acquitted six (06) of the accused while convicting the remaining nine (09) accused. In appeal, the High Court set aside the conviction of five (05) of the accused while maintaining the same in respect of four (04) accused, namely, Accused No.1 - Ramanathan s/o Velu, Accused No.2 - Purushothaman s/o Mani Nathan, Accused No.3 - Selvaraj s/o Veerappan and Accused No.4 - Kalaimohan s/o Desingu. Aggrieved, Accused No.3 - Selvaraj s/o Veerappan and Accused No.4 - Kalaimohan s/o Desingu have filed the present appeal by special leave.
(2.) We have heard the learned counsels for the parties.
(3.) The prosecution examined a large number of witnesses as eye-witnesses to the occurrence, namely, Pandian (PW-1), Deivanayagam (PW-2), Karunakaran (PW-3), Suresh (PW-4), Punitha (PW-5), Kadal Dhanasekar (PW-6), Sundari (PW-7), Bhuvaneshwari (PW-8), Anandhi (PW-9), Jayalakshmi (PW-10), Tamilvanan (PW-11) and Saravanan (PW-12). All the prosecution witnesses except Kadal Dhanasekar (PW-6) and Tamilvanan (PW-11) were declared hostile.;