- (1.) BY the Court.This appeal has been preferred by Suraj Pal Singh, Atar Singh and Hari Singh against the judgmsnt and order dated 15th September, 1980 of Sri Gaya Prasad, Vlth Additional Sessions Judge, Mainpuri convicting and sentenc­ing the appellants under Section 302, I.P.C. to imprisonment for life. The order was passed in Sessions Trial No. 11 of 1979.
(2.) THE prosecution case is that the deceased Sriram was a resident of Allapur and was elder brother of the father of informant Quaim Singh. Sriram had only one son Tilak Singh, but unfortunately Tilak Singh expired about 20 or 22 years prior to the incident and was survived by his widow Smt. Ganga Devi. The F.I.R. sates that Smt. Ganga Devi belonged to Nagla Badha, PS. Karhal and after her husband's death she started living at the house of her father and sometimes she used to visit the house of the appellant Suraj Pal Singh. Deceased Sriram was an old man of about 90 years with weak eye sight and he could walk with the help of a stick. After death of Tilak Singh, Sriram used to reside with Quaim Singh, the first informant of the case. The further case of the prosecution is that appellants Suraj Pal Singh etc. got a maintenance case filed against Sriram and in that case appellant Suraj Pal Singh was doing Pairvi for Smt. Ganga Devi. Sriram contested the case of maintenance. He won this case from the High Court. The incident is said to have taken place on 5th January, 1978 at about 7.30 a.m. It is alleged by the prosecution that Sriram had gone to answer the call of nature accompanied by Jagdish. Sriram went and sat in the field of Ram Singh, Barber to ease and Jagdish stood at a dis­tance of about 20 paces. As soon as the deceased was able to ease, the three appel­lants emerged from the nearby sugarcane field of Mahraj Singh and started deliver­ing spear blows upon the deceased. The deceased Sriram felt down and died as a result of the injuries received by him. Jag­dish raised aiarm attracting informant Quaim Singh and Karan Pal. On the arrival of the witnesses the appellants escaped. Quaim Singh lodged an F.I.R. at police station Jasrana on the same day at 9.30 a.m. at a distance of about two furlongs from the spot. The investigation was taken up by Sri Baij Nath Singh, Station Officer. The body was sent for post-mortem examina­tion which was conducted by Dr. S.S. Agar-wal, P.W. 3 on 6-1-1978 at about 3.00 p.m. The doctor found the following injuries on the person of Sriram: 1. Lacerated wound 4 cm. x 4 cm. x bone deep. Bone fractured at right side. Face surrounded by 5 other lacerated wounds size varying from 2.5 cm. x 2 cm. x bone deep, bone forward to 5 cm. x 3 cm. x skin deep surrounding from right bone throat to right angle of mouth and right side nose to right cheek. The right eye damaged. 2. Lacerated wound 3 cm. x 1 cm. x muscle deep downward of left hand. 3. Lacerated wound 3 cm. x 1.5 cm. x muscle deep on vernal aspect of left fore-arm. 4. Multiple abrasions in an area of 12 x 2 cm. on right leg front. 5. Multiple abrasions on an area of 10 cm. x 2 cm. on right leg front. 6. Two abrasions each sized 1 cm. x 1.5 cm. and 5 cm. x5 cm. on front of chin. On internal examination the doctor found the right frontal, right temporal, right Zygomatic, Right nasal bone frac­tured and broken into pieces. The internal examination also showed that stomach of the deceased was empty. After completing the investiga­tion, a charge-sheet was filed against the appellants and in due course, the appel­lants were committed to the Court of Ses­sion.
(3.) AT the trial the appellants pleaded not guilty and stated that they had been falsely implicated. In support of its case the prosecution examined three eye-wit­nesses, namely, P.W. 1 Quaim Sing, P.W 2 Jagdish and P. W. 4 Karn Pal. However, P.W. 4 Karn Pal did not support the prosecution version and was declared hostile. P.W. 3 Dr. S.S. Agarwal had conducted the post-mor­tem examination of the deceased. Two for­mal witnesses, namely, constable Rajpal Singh and P.W. 6 Baijath Singh have also been examined. Constable Rajpal Singh was posted at the police station and he had taken the dead-body for post-mortem ex­amination while P.W. 6 Baij Nalh had in­vestigated the case. The appellants did not examine any witnesses in their defence. After scrutinizing the evidence on the record, the learned trial Court convicted and sentenced the appellants as men­tioned above. The appellants have now come up in appeal.;