OLINEEDI VENKATARAMAIAH Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal pursuant to the special leave granted is directed against the concurrent judgments. The three appellants along with 6 others were tried for offences punishable under Ss. 148, 302/ 149, and 449, I.P.C. The trial court convicted all of them. On appeal, the High Court, however, confirmed the sentence awarded against these three appellants (original accused Nos. 4, 5 and 6) and acquitted rest of the accused, namely A-1, A-2, A-3, A-7, A-8 and A-9.

(2.) The prosecution case is as follows : The accused and the deceased Bolineedi Venkateswarlu and the material witnesses are the residents of Village Vepakampalli within the limits of Karampudi Police Station, Andhra Pradesh. All the accused are inter-related and so are rest of the eye-witnesses. There was a bitter enmity between the members of the prosecution party and that of the accused party. It started with a civil dispute in respect of the vacant site of 25 cents. There were police complaints also alleging interference with possession. In that dispute, the deceased was supporting one Chirumanilla Venkayya. On 26-4-1983, the date of incident, the deceased, P.W. 1 and P.W. 11 went to the house of P.W. 2 at about 9.00 p.m. to find out as to what happened to the compromise in the civil dispute. P.W. 2 told them that there were good chances of arriving at a settlement. Thereafter the deceased, P.W. 1 and P.W. 11 came out of P.W. 2's house and the deceased was going to his house towards north. P.W. 1 and P.W. 11 started going to their house towards south and when P.Ws. 1 and 11 proceeded about 30 yards, they heard the cries of the deceased. They turned back and saw all the accused armed with spears, chasing the deceased. The accused caught up with the deceased near the well, surrounded him and caused multiple injuries on several parts of his body. In that attack specific overt acts are attributed to Accused Nos.4, 5 and 6. The deceased, however, wriggled out of the attack and holding his chest with his hand, ran to the nearby house of P.W. 13. The accused followed him, went inside the house and caused several multiple injuries and then thinking that he had died, they left the place. This incident was also witnessed by P. Ws. 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11 and 13. After the accused left the scene of occurrence, the eye-witnesses went near the deceased and found him groaning in pain. After half an hour they put him in a cart and took him to the Police Station. On the way, the deceased expired. Then P.W. 1 went to the Police Station and gave the report on the basis of which the case was registered. An inquest was held and the dead-body was sent for post-mortem. The Doctor, P.W. 6 who conducted the post-mortem found 20 injuries on the body, most of them incised wounds. The doctor, however, was of the opinion that injury No. 5 was itself fatal. He was also of the opinion that the cumulative effect of all the injuries was necessarily fatal and that all the injuries were sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature. The prosecution relied on the evidence of the abovementioned witnesses. The trial Court, as stated above, accepted the prosecution case and convicted and sentenced the accused.

(3.) In the appeal before the High Court, it was contended on behalf of the defence that this incident took place out of acute enmity and the evidence of the eye-witnesses should be rejected as there is likelihood of implicating some innocent persons. The High Court rightly held that their evidence cannot be rejected on the sole ground that they are interested witnesses and proceeded to scrutinise the same with greater care and caution. In that process, the High Court was of the view that only such of those accused to whom specific overt acts have been attributed consistenly can safely be convicted. In that process, the High Court came to the conclusion that so far A-3, A-7 and A-8 and A-9 are concerned, no specific overt acts have been attributed to them, So far as A-1 and A-2 are concerned, P.W. 1 in his deposition did not attribute specific overt acts to them though other witnesses have attributed specific overt acts to them. Giving the benefit of doubt to these accused, the High Court acquitted them.