KAILAS TUKARAM PATIL Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal impugnes the judgment and order dated 7/12/1998 passed by the learned IIIrd Additional Sessions Judge, jalgaon, in Sessions Case No. 91 of 1996. Convicting the appellants (hereinafter referred to as "the accused') for offence punishable under section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code and sentencing them to undergo imprisonment for life and to pay fine of Rs. 500/- each in default to undergo further rigorous imprisonment for three months each.

(2.) The brief facts of the prosecution case which emerge from the record are as under :

(3.) The defence of the accused, as can be seen from the suggestions put in the cross-examination of the witnesses as well as the statements of the accused recorded under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, was one of total denial. It was their case that the place of incident given by two eye-witnesses was not truthful and the eye-witnesses were of the same group as Police Patil PW 3 Dharamraj Patil and together they had falsely implicated the accused in the same crime.