who, however, managed to run away. The accused thereafter went to the house of his maternal uncle PW6 who told him to get out of the house. At 8 a.m. on 14th September 1995 PW1 went to the Village Administrative Officer PW8 and narrated the incident to him. PW8 recorded the circumstances in writing and sent the information to Police Station Avanigadda and a formal FIR was registered in the Police Station. The accused was thereafter arrested and on the completion of the investigation, a. charge sheet was filed under Sections 449 and 302 of the IPC. He pleaded false implication and claimed trial. In support of its case, prosecution examined 13 witnesses in all, the primary witnesses, being one PW1, the elder son of the deceased, who had come to the place of incident during the occurrence after hearing cries of his mother and had also attempted to apprehend him, PW2, the wife of the deceased and mother of PW1 and PW3, the younger brother of PW1, who had gone on a pilgrimage and was in fact the cause of the attack and PW8 the Village Administrative Officer, who had recorded the first information report. Certain other witnesses, who are not eye witnesses, were, however, declared hostile. The prosecution also relied upon various documents such as the post-mortem report and circumstantial evidence such as the recovery of the murder weapon at the instance of the accused etc. The trial court relying on the evidence of PW1 and PW2, both eye witnesses, and the closest relatives of the deceased, as corroborated by the statement of PW3 with regard to the motive convicted the accused. It held that though some of the witness had not supported the prosecution story, it was of no consequence as they had no role to play in determining the truthfulness of the eye witness account of PW1 and PW2. The court accordingly held that though PWs 6 and 9 with respect to the extra judicial confession and the recovery of weapon of murder had not supported the prosecution, this factor would have no effect on the prosecution story. The court also observed that in the light of the fact that the incident had happened at night and PW2 was an old woman 75 years of age and must have been completely traumatized by the events, the mere fact that
