In Brief
Two men (Manjit Kumar and Jaswinder) were assaulted at the house of accused Lal Chand and his sons in Jagatpur, resulting in their deaths. The Sessions Judge convicted five accused under Section 302 RPC (murder); the High Court upheld the conviction. On appeal, the Supreme Court found material contradictions in the prosecution's evidence regarding how the deceased came to be at the accused's house, inconsistencies between the dying declaration and witness testimony, and unexplained injuries to the accused himself. The Court held the prosecution failed to prove murder beyond reasonable doubt and converted the convictions from Section 302 to Section 304 Part I RPC (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), applying Exception I (grave and sudden provocation). The appeal was partly allowed.
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