TMI Blog1964 (3) TMI 128X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ola Korra by the village path leading from there to Sahbajpur and then to Nathpur, three of the accused by name Sudama, Chhathu and Nathuni, who were acquitted by the Additional Sessions Judge, came from the eastern side of a well situated to the south of the said village path and began chasing him with lathis and making noise. The rest of the accused, by name Ugar, Chandrika, Mahadeo and Chandan, who are the appellants herein, were sitting under a Bar tree to the west of the well, and they emerged with bhalas and pharsas and surrounded Sheonandan. The other accused with lathis also arrived there. Sheonandan threw away his bicycle and ran towards Habibnagar; he was being chased by the 7 accused and at the same time being assaulted by them w ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ing different parts : (1) the pursuit of the deceased, who was going on a bicycle, by the three acquitted accused; (2) the joining of the said accused by the appellants at the Bar tree; (3) the joint pursuit of the deceased by all the accused and their assaulting him all me way till he fell down in the field of Mahadeo Ahir; and (4) the intercession of witnesses, P. Ws. 1, 2 and 4, and the assault made on them by two of the appellants and the acquitted accused. 4. The learned Additional Sessions Judge, on a consideration of the entire evidence arrived at the following findings: (1) There were two factions in the village--the accused belonging to one faction and the deceased and the witnesses belonging to the other; some members of each g ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... must have also been participants in the clash. Some how the clash took place but we are only left to guess as to how it started. Having made out a new case, the learned Additional Sessions Judge acquitted three of the accused and convicted the appellants under Section 304 (Part I) of the Indian Penal Code and) sentenced them to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 7 years. On appeal, the High Court followed the same pattern in the appreciation of the evidence. It accepted the motive; it disbelieved the story of pursuit of the deceased by the three acquitted accused; it also disbelieved the evidence of the witnesses that Sheonandan had snatched the bhala from one of the accused and injured two of them with it, it also accepted the finding ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... secution witnesses deposed in the court. 6. The maxim falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus (false in one thing, false in everything) is neither a sound rule of law nor a rule of practice. Hardly one comes across a witness whose evidence does not contain a grain of untruth or at any rate exaggerations, embroideries or embellishments. It is, therefore, the duty of the court to scrutinise the evidence carefully and, in terms of the felicitous metaphor, separate the grain from the chaff. But. it cannot obviously disbelieve the substratum of the prosecution case or the material parts of the evidence and reconstruct a story of its own out of the rest. That is what the courts have done in this case. In effect, the courts disbelieved practically ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
|
