p.m. on 5th September, 1985 and recovered a bullet in the blood oozing out from the injury at the hip of the dead body, no effort worthy of consideration appears to have been made to seize the weapons by which the murderous attack was launched. It is true that mere failure/neglect to effect seizure of the weapon(s) cannot be the sole reason for discarding the prosecution case but the same assumes importance on the face of the oral testimony of the so-called eye- witnesses, i.e., PW-2 and PW-3, not being found by this Court to be wholly reliable. The missing links could have been provided by the Investigating Officer who, again, did not enter the witness box. Whether or not non-examination of a witness has caused prejudice to the defence is essentially a question of fact and an inference is required to be drawn having regard to the facts and circumstances obtaining in each case. The reason why the Investigating Officer could not depose as a witness, as told by PW-4, is that he had been sent for training. It was not shown that the Investigating Officer under no circumstances could have left the course for recording of his deposition in the trial court. It is worthy of being noted that neither the trial court nor the High Court considered the issue of non-examination of the Investigating Officer. In the facts of the present case, particularly conspicuous gaps in the prosecution case and the evidence of PW-2 and PW-3 not being wholly reliable, this Court holds the present case as one where examination of the Investigating Officer was vital since he could have
