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PETITIONER: DUDH NATH PANDEY

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: THE STATE OF U.P.

DATE OF JUDGMENT11/02/1981

BENCH: CHANDRACHUD, Y.V. ((CJ) BENCH: CHANDRACHUD, Y.V. ((CJ) SEN, A.P. (J)

CITATION:  1981 AIR  911            1981 SCR  (2) 771  1981 SCC  (2) 166        1981 SCALE  (1)285  CITATOR INFO :  RF         1990 SC1359  (5)

ACT:      Indian Penal Code-Section 302-For the offence of murder the normal sentence is sentence of life imprisonment and not of  death-Witnesses   failed  to  reveal  the  whole  truth- Considerations to  be taken  into account while dealing with the question of sentence for the offence of murder.      Concurrent findings  of two courts below-Supreme Court, if could examine their correctness.      Plea of alibi-Its postulates.

HEADNOTE:      The prosecution  alleged that  when  the  appellant,  a motor-car driver who was living as a tenant in the out-house of the  bungalow belonging  to the  family of  the deceased, developed a  fancy for  the  sister  of  the  deceased.  His overtures created  resentment in the family and the deceased took upon  himself the task of preventing the appellant from pursuing his  sister. The appellant’s effort to take custody of the  deceased’s  sister  through  legal  proceedings  had failed; sometime later on a complaint to the police that the appellant had  been making indecent overtures towards her he was arrested.  A day  before the  day of  the occurrence the appellant  was  alleged  to  have  threatened  to  kill  the deceased if  he opposed  his (appellant’s) marriage with his sister. It  was further  alleged that while the deceased was returning home  on his  scooter after  leaving his sister in the school where she was working as a teacher, the appellant fired a shot at him with a pistol at which the deceased fell dead instantaneously.      He was convicted under section 302 I.P.C. and sentenced to death. The order of conviction and sentence was confirmed by the High Court.      On the question of sentence ^      HELD: 1.  The Sessions  Court and  the High  Court were right in  convicting the  appellant under section 302 I.P.C. [779 G]      (a) The  mere circumstance that two or more courts have taken the  same view  of facts does not shut out all further inquiry into  the correctness  of that  view. Concurrence is

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not an  insurance against  the charge of perversity though a strong case  has to  be made  out in  order to  support  the charge that findings of fact recorded by more than one court are perverse.  The merit  of the normal rule that concurrent findings ought  not to be reviewed by this Court consists in the assumption  that it  is not  likely  that  two  or  more tribunals would  come to  the same conclusion unless it is a just and fair conclusion to come to. [718 E-G]      2. While  dealing with the question of sentence for the offence of  murder, the  normal sentence  is the sentence of life imprisonment  and not of death. If in a same conclusion unless it  is a just and fair conclusion to come to. [778 E- G] 772 balances do  not choose  to reveal the whole truth the Court while dealing  with the  question of sentence has to step in interstitially  and   take  into   account  all   reasonable possibilities having regard to the normal and natural course of human affairs. In the instant case it would be unsafe, on the evidence  on record,  to sentence  the appellant  to the extreme penalty of death. [780 H]      The appellant,  a poor motor-car driver, must have been offended enormously   when  the deceased  abused him that he was a  man of  two paise  worth and  that if he attempted to marry his  sister he would break his hands and feet and that his poverty  was being  put up  as the reason why his sister would not  be allowed to marry him. The dispute thus assumed proportions of  a fued  over social status. The poor man was fretting that  the rich  man’s daughter would not be allowed to marry  him for  the mere reason that he did not belong to an  equal  class  of  society.  The  appellant,  rightly  or wrongly, believed  that the  girl was not unwilling to marry him. The  incident of  the previous  evening  could  not  be considered  as   affording  "sudden"   provocation  to   the appellant for  the crime  committed by  him on the following morning. It  cannot reduce  the offence  of  murder  into  a lesser offence,  but the  mental turmoil  and the  sense  of being socially  wronged  through  which  the  appellant  was passing  could   not  be   overlooked  while   deciding  the appropriate sentence. [780 B-D]      Secondly the  fact that, apart from the gun-shot wound, the deceased  had no  other injury  on his  person except an abrasion on  the left  side of the chest evidently caused by the gun-shot  itself coupled  with the fact that the scooter was found  "standing" on  the road  showed that the deceased stopped on  seeing the  appellant  and  that  there  was  an exchange of  hot words  between them  culminating    in  the murder. But  since in the present case a part of the crucial evidence had  been screened  from the  Court’s scrutiny  the possibility of  an altercation between the appellant and the deceased cannot reasonably be excluded. [780 F-H]      (3) The evidence of the defence witnesses has failed to establish the  alibi of  the appellants.  The plea  of alibi postulates the physical impossibility of the presence of the accused at the scene of offence by reason of his presence at another place.  The plea  therefore succeeds  only if  it is shown that  the accused was so far away at the relevant time that he  could not  be present  at the place where the crime was committed.  But in  the present case the evidence of the defence witnesses,  accepting  it  at  its  face  value,  is consistent with  the appellant’s  presence at the factory at the appointed  hour and  half an  hour later at the scene of offence. So short is the distance between the two points.                                               [778 H; 779 D]

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JUDGMENT:      CRIMINAL APPELLATE  JURISDICTION: Criminal  Appeal  No. 163 of 1979.      Appeal by  Special Leave  from the  Judgment and  Order dated 23-8-1978  of the  Allahabad High  Court  in  Criminal Appeal No. 1264/78 and Murder Reference No. 9/78.      R. C. Kohli for the Appellant.      O. P. Rana and K. K. Bhatta for the Respondent.      Yogeshwar  Prasad   and  Mrs.   Rani  Chhabra  for  the Complainant. 773      The Judgment of the Court was delivered by      CHANDRACHUD, C.J.-A college-going boy called Vijay Bhan Kishore was  shot dead  on the  morning of  November 2, 1976 near the Hathi Park, Dayanand Marg, Allahabad. The appellant was convicted  for that  offence under  section 302  of  the Penal Code  by the  learned Third Additional Sessions Judge, Allahabad  and   was  sentenced   to  death.  The  order  of conviction and  sentence having  been confirmed  by the High Court of  Allahabad by  its judgment  dated August 23, 1979, the appellant has filed this appeal by Special Leave.      Vijay Bhan  Kishore alias  Pappoo was  the  son  of  an Advocate called  Brij Bhan  Kishore who  died in  about 1967 leaving behind  a widow,  three daughters  and  Pappoo.  The youngest of  the three  daughters was  married while the two elder were  working as  school teachers.  Out of  those two, Ranjana Kishore was a teacher in the St. Anthony’s Convent.      The appellant,  Dudh Nath  Pandey, who  was a motor-car driver by  occupation, used  to live  as a tenant in an out- house of a sprawling bungalow belonging to the family of the deceased, situated  at  17,  Stanley  Road,  Allahabad.  The appellant developed  a fancy  for Ranjana  who was  about 20 years of  age when  he came  to live  in the  out-house. The overtures  made   by  the   appellant  to   Ranjana  created resentment in her family and its only surviving male member, her brother Pappoo, took upon himself the task of preventing the appellant from pursuing his sister. As a first step, the appellant was  turned out of the out-house. Soon thereafter, he  filed   an  application   before  the  City  Magistrate, Allahabad, asking  for the custody of Ranjana, alleging that she was  his lawfully  wedded  wife.  That  application  was dismissed by  the learned  Magistrate  after  recording  the statement of  Ranjana, in  which she  denied  that  she  was married to  the appellant.  The appellant thereafter filed a habeas corpus  petition in the Allahabad High Court alleging that Ranjana  was detained  unlawfully by the members of her family, including  her uncle  K. P.  Saxena, and asking that she be  released from  their custody. Ranjana denied in that proceedings too  that she  was married  to the  appellant or that she  was unlawfully  detained by  the  members  of  her family. The habeas corpus petition was dismissed by the High Court on  November 8, 1973. On August 1, 1975, the Principal of St. Anthony’s Convent made a complaint to the police that the appellant  had made  indecent overtures  to Ranjana. The appellant was arrested as a result of that complaint. 774      On November  1, 1976,  Ranjana was  having  an  evening stroll  with  her  brother,  the  deceased  Pappoo,  in  the compound of  their house.  The appellant  came  there  in  a rickshaw, abused Pappoo and is alleged to have threatened to kill him,  if he  dared oppose his, the appellant’s marriage with Ranjana. As a result of these various incidents and the family’s growing  concern for  Ranjana’s safety, Pappoo used

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to escort  Ranjana every morning to the school where she was teaching.      On the  following day, i.e. on November 2, 1976, Pappoo took Ranjana  to her  school on  his scooter  as usual.  The classes used to begin at 9-30 A.M. but Ranjana used to go to the school  30 to  40 minutes before time for correcting the students’ home-work.  After dropping  Ranjana at the school, Pappoo started  back for  home on  his scooter. While he was passing by the Children’s Park, known as the Hathi Park, the appellant is  alleged to  have fired  at him with a country- made pistol.  Pappoo fell  down from  his scooter  and  died almost instantaneously.      The occurrence is said to have been witnessed by Harish Chandra (P.  W. 3),  a domestic servant of the family of the deceased and  by Harish  Chandra’s friend Ashok Kumar (P. W. 1). Harish  Chandra used  to live  in the  out-house of  the deceased’s bungalow  at 17, Stanley Road, while Ashok Kumar, who generally  lived at  Kanpur, is  said to  have  come  to Allahabad the  previous day  in search of employment. Almost immediately after  Pappoo and  Ranjana left the house on the scooter, Ashok  Kumar and  Harish Chandra too left the house as the  former wanted  to see the Hathi Park. They were near about the  gate of  the park, which is a few steps away from the scene  of  occurrence,  when  the  deceased  Pappoo  was passing along  on his scooter, after dropping Ranjana at the St. Anthony’s  Convent. Ashok  Kumar and  Harish Chandra are alleged to  have seen  the appellant,  who was standing near the northern  boundary of the park, firing a shot at Pappoo. The appellant  re-loaded his  pistol and is said to have run away to wards the south-east.      Ashok Kumar  and Harish Chandra rushed to St. Anthony’s Convent in a rickshaw and informed Ranjana Kishore about the murder of her brother. Ranjana went to the scene of incident along with  them and  on finding  that her brother was dead, she went  straight to the Cannington police station which is about 2  kms. away.  She wrote  out the report (Ex. Ka-1) in her own  hand and  submitted it  to the officer-in-charge of the police station at 9-45 A.M. In the meantime, information of the murder had reached the police station of Colonelganj, within the  ’jurisdiction’ of  which the  murder  had  taken place. 775      The police  deserve a word of appreciation because they did not,  as usual,  enter into  a squabble  as to  in whose ’jurisdiction’  the  offence  had  taken  place.  H.  R.  L. Srivastava, the sub inspector attached to Colonelganj police station, went  within minutes  to the  scene of offence and, believing that  Pappoo was  alive, sent him in a jeep to the Tej Bahadur  Sapru  hospital.  A  little  later,  P.  S.  I. Chandrapal Singh of the Cannington police station arrived on the scene  and started  the investigation. He took charge of an empty  cartridge-shell and  the  bloodstained  earth  and later, he  sent the  dead  body  of  Pappoo  for  postmortem examination.      P. S.  I. Srivastava arrested the appellant at about 2- 30 P.M.  while he  was standing  near a pan-shop in front of the Indian  Telephone Industries,  Naini, where  he used  to work. The  appellant was taken to the scene of offence where he made  a certain  statement and  took out  a loaded pistol from a  heap of rubbish lying on the Kamla Nehru Road, being the direction in which he had run away after killing Pappoo. The Ballistic  expert, Budul  Rai,  opined  that  the  empty cartridge-shell, which  was lying  at the  scene of offence, was fired from that particular pistol.      Dr.  G.   S.  Saxena,   who  conducted  the  postmortem

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examination found  a single gun-shot injury on the left side of the  chest of  the deceased, below the armpit. The injury had caused  seven pellet  wounds, each measuring 1/3 inch in diameter. Seven  pellets were  recovered from  the body. The injury, according  to Dr.  Saxena,  was  sufficient  in  the ordinary course of nature to cause death.      The appellant  stated in  his defence  that he  used to live in the house of the deceased as the guest of the family and not  as a  tenant and that Ranjana got intimate with him during that  period. He  left the house because she told him that there  was danger  to his  life. The  murder of Pappoo, according to  the appellant,  was engineered  by Dr.  K.  P. Saxena, the  maternal uncle  of the  deceased. The appellant denied his  hand in the murder, saying that he had no reason to do  so since  the deceased’s mother and the other members of the family desired that he should marry Ranjana.      The appellant  examined five  witnesses  to  prove  his alibi, his  contention being  that he  was on  duty  at  the Indian Telephone  Industries, right  from 8-30  A.M. on  the date of  the incident  and that  he was arrested from inside the factory at about 2-30 P.M. while on duty. 776      The  learned   Additional  Sessions  Judge,  Allahabad, examined the  Deputy Superintendent  of Police, R. P. Bhanu, and the  General Manager  of the Indian Telephone Industries as Court witnesses.      The prosecution examined 13 witnesses in support of its case that  the appellant had committed the murder of Pappoo. Ashok Kumar  (P.W. 1)  and  Harish  Chandra  (P.W.  3)  were examined as  eyewitnesses to  the incident.  Ranjana Kishore (P.W. 2)  was examined to prove the motive for the murder as also for  showing that  the deceased Pappoo had taken her to the school on his scooter and that, soon thereafter, she was informed by the two eye-witnesses of the murder. Ram Kishore (P.W. 4)  was examined  to prove the arrest of the appellant and the  recovery of  the loaded pistol. P. S. I. Srivastava (P.W. 9) and P.S.I. Chandrapal Singh (P.W. 10) deposed about the various  steps taken during the course of investigation. Dr. G. S. Saxena (P.W. 11) was examined in order to show the nature of  the injuries suffered by the deceased while Budul Rai (P.W.  12) stated  that the  empty cartridge-shell which was lying  at the  scene  of  offence  was  fired  from  the particular pistol  which is stated to have been recovered at the  instance   of  the  appellant.  The  other  prosecution witnesses are mostly of a formal nature.      Were this  a case of circumstantial evidence, different considerations would  have prevailed  because the balance of evidence after  excluding  the  testimony  of  the  two  eye witnesses is not of the standard required in cases dependent wholly on  circumstantial evidence.  Evidence of recovery of the pistol at the instance of the appellant cannot by itself prove that  he who  pointed out  the weapon  weilded  it  in offence.  The   statement  accompanying   the  discovery  is woefully vague  to identify  the authorship  of concealment, with the  result that  the pointing out of the weapon may at best prove  the appellant’s knowledge as to where the weapon was kept.  The evidence  of the Ballistic expert carries the proof of  the charge  a significant step ahead, but not near enough, because at the highest, it shows that the shot which killed Pappoo  was fired  from the  pistol which was pointed out by the appellant. The evidence surrounding the discovery of the  pistol may  not be discarded as wholly untrue but it leaves a  few significant questions unanswered and creates a sense of  uneasiness in  the mind  of a  Criminal Court, the Court of  conscience that  it  has  to  be:  How  could  the

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appellant have  an opportunity  to  conceal  the  pistol  in broad-day light  on a  public thoroughfare ? If he re-loaded the pistol  as a measure of self protection, as suggested by the prosecution,  why did  he get  rid of  it so  quickly by throwing it  near the  Hathi Park itself ? And how come that the police hit upon none better that Ram Kishore (P.W. 4) to witness the  discovery of  the  pistol  ?  Ram  Kishore  had already 777 deposed  in   seven  different   cases  in   favour  of  the prosecution and  was evidently  at the  beck and call of the police.      But the  real hurdle in the way of the appellant is the evidence of  the eye  witnesses: Ashok  Kumar (P.W.  1)  and Harish Chandra  (P.W. 3).  Shri R.  C. Kohli who appears for the appellant  made a  valiant  attempt  to  demolish  their evidence but  in spite  of the  counsel’s able  argument, we find it  difficult  to  hold  that  the  eye-witnesses  have perjured themselves  by claiming  to be  present at the time and place of the occurrence. It is true that Harish Chandra, who was  working as  a domestic  servant with the deceased’s family, should  normally have  been doing  his daily morning chores. Few  masters would  permit a household servant to go away on a sight-seeing spree right in the morning. But there are at  least two  plausible reasons which lend assurance to the  claim   that  Harish  Chandra  left  the  house  almost immediately after  the deceased  Pappoo drove  away with his sister Ranjana.  Ashok  Kumar  had  come  to  Allahabad  the previous evening  and he  wanted to  go to  the  Hathi  Park where, though  it is  called a  children’s park,  adults too find  their   merriment.  There   is  nothing  fundamentally improbable in  Ashok Kumar  coming to Allahabad in search of employment and  equally, nothing  inherently strange  in the two friends  going out  on a  frolic.  And  though  a  small consideration,  it  is  relevant  that  the  normal  morning routine of Harish Chandra was to help in the kitchen but the 2nd November,  1976 was an Ekadashi day and therefore, there was not much to do for him.      The second  reason is  more weighty and almost clinches the issue. The evidence of Ranjana (P.W. 2) shows beyond the manner of doubt that Harish Chandra and Ashok Kumar broke to her the  news of  her brother’s murder, while she was in the school. The  events after  the murder happened in such quick succession that  there was  no time  for any one to contrive and confabulate.  Within  ten  minutes  of  the  occurrence, Ranjana was informed of the incident by the two eyewitnesses and within a few moments thereafter she went to the scene of the tragedy.  Her F.I.R.  (Ex. Ka-1)  was  recorded  at  the police  station  at  9-45  a.m.  A  fact  of  preponderating importance is  that the story which Ranjana disclosed in the F.I.R. is  precisely the  same as  the witnesses,  including herself, narrated  in the  Court.  The  F.I.R.  is  a  brief document of  a page  and half.  But it is remarkable that it mentions (1)  that the appellant wanted to marry Ranjana and was harassing  her towards  that end;  (2) that  there was a quarrel  between  the  appellant  and  Pappoo  the  previous evening, in  which the  former gave  a threat of life to the latter (3)  that Ranjana  left for  the school on the day of occurrence at 8-45 A.M.; and (4) that soon thereafter Harish 778 Chandra and  Ashok Kumar  met her at the school and conveyed to her  that they had gone to see the Hathi Park when, while Pappoo was  passing along  the road,  the Appellant  fired a shot at him. We consider it beyond the normal range of human propensities that  Ranjana could  have built  up  the  whole

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story within  three quarters  of an  hour  which  intervened between the time that she learnt of her brother’s murder and the lodging  by her  of the  F.I.R. She could not have taken the risk of creating a false witness by placing Ashok Kumar, who normally,  resided in  Kanpur, alongside Harish Chandra. With the  death of  her brother,  her  own  house  was  left without a  male member. At home was an ailing mother and two other sisters, more or less of her own age. There was no one to advise  her upon  the hatching of a conspiracy to involve the appellant  and she could not have been in a proper frame of mind  to  do  anything  of  the  kind  on  her  own.  Her inexperience of life, the promptness with which she gave the F.I.R. and  the wealth  of  details  she  mentioned  therein afford an  assurance that  the story of the eye-witnesses is true in  so far  as it  goes. Shri  Kohli’s submission  that Ranjana’s F.I.R.  is anti-timed  and must have been recorded late in the evening leaves us cold.      Shri  Kohli   has  pointed   a  defect   here  and   an improbability there in the evidence of the eye-witnesses but it has to be borne in mind that the Trial Court and the High Court have  concurrently believed  that evidence.  We do not suggest that  the mere circumstances that two or more courts have taken  the same  view of  facts shuts  out all  further inquiry into  the correctness  of that  view.  For  example, concurrence is  not  an  insurance  against  the  charge  of perversity though  a strong case has to be made out in order to support the charge that findings of fact recorded by more than one  court are  perverse, that is to say, they are such that no  reasonable tribunal  could have  recorded them. The merit of  the normal rule that concurrent findings ought not to be reviewed by this Court consists in the assumption that it is  not likely  that two  or more tribunals would come to the same  conclusion unless it is a just and fair conclusion to come  to. In  the instant  case, the view of the evidence taken by the Sessions Court and the High Court is, at least, a reasonable  view to  take and  that  is  why  we  are  not disposed, so  to say, to re-open the whole case on evidence. We have  indicated briefly  why we  consider that  the  eye- witness account  accords with the broad probabilities of the case.      Counsel for the appellant pressed hard upon us that the defence evidence  establishes the alibi of the appellant. We think not.  The evidence  led by the appellant to show that, at the  relevant time,  he was on duty at his usual place of work at Naini has a certain amount 779 of plausibility  but that  is about  all. The High Court and the Sessions  Court have  pointed out many a reason why that evidence  cannot   be  accepted  as  true.  The  appellant’s colleagues at  the Indian  Telephone Industries made a brave bid to  save his  life by giving evidence suggesting that he was at  his desk  at or  about the time when the murder took place and  further, that  he was  arrested from  within  the factory. We  do not want to attribute motives to them merely because they were examined by the defence. Defence witnesses are  entitled   to  equal   treatment  with   those  of  the prosecution.   And,   Courts   ought   to   overcome   their traditional, instinctive  disbelief  in  defence  witnesses. Quite often,  they tell  lies  but  so  do  the  prosecution witnesses. Granting  that D.  Ws. 1  to 5  are right,  their evidence, particularly  in the  light of the evidence of the two Court  witnesses, is  insufficient  to  prove  that  the appellant could not have been present near the Hathi Park at about 9-00 A.M. when the murder of Pappoo was committed. The plea of  alibi postulates  the physical impossibility of the

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presence of the accused at the scene of offence by reason of his presence  at  another  place.  The  plea  can  therefore succeed only if it is shown that the accused was so far away at the  relevant time  that he  could not  be present at the place where  the crime  was committed.  The evidence  of the defence witnesses,  accepting  it  at  its  face  value,  is consistent  with  the  appellant’s  presence  at  the  Naini factory at  8-30 A.M.  and at  the scene  of offence at 9.00 A.M. So  short is  the distance  between the two points. The workers punch  their cards  when they  enter the factory but when they  leave the  factory, they do not have to punch the time of  their exit. The appellant, in all probability, went to the  factory at  the appointed  hour, left it immediately and went  in search  of his  prey. He  knew when, precisely, Pappoo would  return after  dropping Ranjana  at the school. The appellant  appears to  have attempted  to go back to his work but  that involved the risk of the time of his re-entry being punched again. That is how he was arrested at about 2- 30 P.M. while he was loitering near the pan-shop in front of the factory.  There is  no truth  in the  claim that  he was arrested from inside the factory.      That settles the issue of guilt. We agree with the view of the  High Court  and the  Sessions Court  and uphold  the appellant’s conviction under section 302 of the Penal Code.      The question  of  sentence  has  gravely  agitated  our minds. A young college-going boy was murdered because he was trying to  wean away  his sister  from the  influence of the appellant who  had set his heart upon her. But there are two reasons why  we  are  not  disposed  to  confirm  the  death sentence. In the first place, the appellant was smarting 780 under the  insult hurled  at him by the deceased Pappoo, the previous evening.  As stated  by Ranjana in the F.I.R., when the appellant  proclaimed his  determination to  marry  her, Pappoo retorted:  "You are  a man  of two Paisa’s worth. How can you  dare to  marry my  sister ? I will break your hands and feet."  A poor  motor-car driver that the appellant was, he must  have been  offended enormously that his poverty was being put  up as the reason why Ranjana would not be allowed to marry  him. The dispute thus assumed the proportions of a feud over social status, the poor man fretting that the rich man’s daughter  would not  be allowed  to marry  him for the mere reason  that he  did not  belong to  an equal  class of society. And  it is  evident that  he believed,  rightly  or wrongly, that  Ranjana was  not unwilling  to take  him as a husband. It  is in  the immediate background of the previous evening’s  incident   that  the  question  of  sentence  has perforce to be considered. That incident cannot certainly be considered  as   affording  "sudden"   provocation  to   the appellant for  the crime  committed by  him the next morning and, therefore, it cannot  reduce the offence of murder into a lesser  offence. But,  the mental turmoil and the sense of being socially  wronged  through  which  the  appellant  was passing cannot  be overlooked  while deciding  which is  the appropriate sentence  to pass,  the rule  being that for the offence of  murder, the  normal sentence  is the sentence of life imprisonment and not of death.      Secondly, Harish  Chandra and Ashok Kumar do not appear to have  revealed the  whole truth  to  the  Court.  If  the appellant had  fired a  shot at  Pappoo while the latter was driving along  on his scooter, and if Pappoo, as is alleged, dropped dead,  his scooter  would have dragged him ahead and in that  process he  would have  received some  injury.  The scooter too would have been damaged, howsoever slightly. But it is strange that apart from the gun-shot wound, Pappoo had

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no other injury on his person except an abrasion on the left side of the chest which was evidently caused by the gun-shot itself. The  scooter was  not dragged at all, except for the mark of  pellets. And, most importantly, the scooter was not lying on  the road  but was "standing". Pappoo seems to have stopped on seeing the appellant and quite clearly, there was an exchange  of hot  words between  them which culminated in Pappoo’s murder. The death of the brave, young lad which has deprived the  family of  the succour of its only male member is to  be  deeply  lamented.  But,  if  witnesses  on  whose evidence the life of an accused hangs in the balance, do not choose to  reveal the  whole truth, the Court, while dealing with the question of sentence, has to step in interstitially and take  into account  all reasonable possibilities, having regard to the normal and natural course of human affairs. 781 Since a part of the crucial event has been screened from the Court’s scrutiny  and  the  possibility  of  an  altercation between the  appellant and the deceased cannot reasonably be excluded, we consider it unsafe to sentence the appellant to the extreme penalty.      In  the  result,  we  confirm  the  conviction  of  the appellant under  section 302 of the Penal Code but set aside the sentence  of death  imposed upon  him. We  sentence  the appellant  to   imprisonment  for   life.  The   appeal  is, accordingly, allowed partly. P.B.R.                               Appeal allowed partly. 782