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Both the Courts below have given a complete and exhaustive narration of the details of the prosecution case and it is not necessary for us to repeat the same all over again. The present occurrence has resulted in the death of Surjit Singh a collateral of the accused and appears to be a result of a long standing enmity between the parties. Suffice it to say that on 14th November, 1967 at about 4.00 p.m. the deceased Surjit Singh had arrived at his house with a cart load of maize cobs from the side of his field. At that time Harbhajan Singh, a ,cousin of the deceased and his mother Kesar Kaur and two other relations, namely, Chanan Kaur and Mango were sitting inside the courtyard of their house 6 to 7 yards from the door of his house the four appellants entered the house of Piara Singh variously armed and pounced upon the deceased and assaulted him with Kirpan, Gandasi and Barchhi and also with a bullet from the rifle. According to the prosecution, Piara Singh was armed with a rifle, fired a rifle shot at the deceased on his groins as a result of which he fell down and died soon after. On hearing the alarm Kundan Singh, Gurbux Singh and Surat Singh then arrived at the spot who were apprised of the occurrence by Harbhajan Singh and other members of the family also narrated the entire incident to them. The complainant Harbhajan Singh rushed to the Police Station, Valtoha situated at about 4 miles from the place of the occurrence and lodged the F. I. R. at 4-30 p.m. giving the necessary details of the incident. The dead body of the deceased was taken to the hospital which was lying near the Manawan Canal when the Sub-Inspector came and sent the same to the mortuary for postmortem examination. After the usual investigation a charge-sheet was submitted against the appellants as a result of which they were committed to the court of Sessions, tried and finally acquitted by the learned Trial Judge, We have heard counsel for the parties at great length and have also gone through the evidence and the judgments of the two courts. The High Court has discussed the evidence in great detail and it has also indicated clearly the important circumstances relied upon by the learned Sessions Judge in acquitting.the appellants and has sought to displace them by giving, in 'our opinion, cogent reasons. We are clearly of the opinion that the High Court was right in reversing the order of acquittal passed by the learned Sessions Judge who had made a wrong approach to the whole case. This was not a case in which two views were reasonably possible. The, judgment of the Sessions Judge is legally erroneous and is also against the weight of the evidence on the record.

As the High Court has given detailed reasons for setting aside the order of acquittal passed by the Sessions Judge, it is not necessary for us to discuss the matter in great detail.

The central evidence against the appellants consisted of the three eye-witneses, namely, P.W. 3 Harbhajan Singh, P.W. 5 Chanan Kaur Kaur and P. W. 6 Kesar Kaur. It is true that-. the three witnesses were relations of the deceased and bore animus against the accused but as the occurrence had taken place near the door of the house of the deceased these persons were the natural witnesses and were in fact sitting in the court-Yard when the occurrence took place. It may be difficult to get witnesses from the village when an assault of the type. suddenly takes place in the house of the deceased. It is well settled that the evidence of interested or inimical witnesses is to be scrutinised with care but cannot be rejected merely on the ground of being a partisan evidence. If on a perusal of the evidence the Court is satisfied that the evidence is creditworthy there is no bar in the Court relying on the said evidence. The High Court was fully alive to these principles and has in fact found that the evidence of these three witnesses has a ring of truth. After having perused the evidence ourselves also we fully agree with the view taken by the High Court. In fact, the learned Sessions Judge has not made any attempt to dwell into the intrinsic merits of the evidence of these witnesses but has rejected them mainly on general grounds most of which are either unsupportable in law or based on speculation. The evidence of the eye-witnesses is sought to be corroborated by the evidence of P. W. 7 Kundan Singh to whom the whole occurrence was narrated immediately after the accused left the house. There is also the evidence of Balbir Singh P. W. 17, who is a Sarpanch of the village and an independent witness and who proves that the appellant Piara Singh had made an extra judicial confession before him in which he admitted to have committed. the murder of the deceased Surjit Singh along with his companions Kashmir Singh, Gian Singh and Joginder Singh. This witness also as that Kashmir Singh on being narrated by the details made a disclosure which resulted in the recovery of the Kirpan from the sugar- cane field of Meja Singh for which a search list was prepared and the Kirpan was also found stained with human blood. According to the Investigating Officer an empty cartridge was also found at the spot and he sent the same to the Ballistic Expert along with the rifle recovered from Piara Singh who was a constable in the Border Security Force and the Ballistic-Expert found that the empty could have been shot from the rifle in question. These circumstances fully corroborate thee evidence of the eye-witnesses. Finally, there is the medical evidence of Dr. Jatinder Singh who performed the postmortem examination (in the deceased and he found as many as 7 incised wounds on the various parts of the body of the deceased and 7 incised punctured wounds on some vital parts of the body. Apart from these injuries the deceased had also sustained a gun shot injury with a wound of entry and exit on the left buttock, which according to Dr. Jatinder Singh could be; caused by a fire- arm including a rifle. The Doctor further deposed that the contusions and abrasions were caused by a blunt weapon and the other incised wounds were caused by a sharp cutting instrument like the Gandasa. Another Doctor was examined by the Sessions Judge as Court Witness No. 1 who on seeing the post-mortem report of Dr. Jatinder Singh was of the view that Injury No. 11 could not have been caused by a rifle and much capital was made by the accused but of the evidence given by Dr. Paramjit Singh.

"Irregular wound with inverted margin 2" x 1- 3/4" was on the left middle inguinal region with counter wound 4" x 3" on the back left buttock crease. Fractured femur and lacerated muscles were seen at the depth of the wound. Further direction showed injury to the femoral vessels of the leg".

The nature, position and content of this injury clearly shows that it was a fire-arm injury which could have been inflicted by a rifle. There was a wound on entrance and another on exit which could be only possible if the deceased was injured by a bullet. There is the positive ,evidence of P.Ws. 3, 5 and 6 that Piara Singh had shot the rifle which hit the deceased. The bullet was found at the spot and the rifle which was recovered from the possession of Piara Singh was sent to the Ballistic Expert within a very short interval. The Ballistic Expert was of the opinion that the empty found could be discharged from the rifle of the appellant Piara Singh. These circumstances therefore speak volumes in support of the prosecution case. The learned Sessions Judge has completely overlooked the effect of these circumstances in relying on the testimony of Dr. Paramjit Singh alone. It is well settled that the positive evidence in the case is that of the eye-witnesses who had seen and narrated the entire occurrence. The evidence of a medical man or an expert is merely an opinion which lends corrobora- tion to the direct evidence in the case. Where there is a glaring inconsistency between direct evidence and the medical evidence in respect of the entire prosecution story, that is undoubtedly a manifest ,defect in the prosecution case. This however is not the position here. There is no inconsistency between the direct and the medical evidence. What has happened is that two experts, namely, Dr. Jatinder Singh and Dr. Paramjit Singh had differed in their opinions. The High Court rightly observed that in view, of difference of opinion between the two experts the evidence of Dr. Jatinder Singh must be preferred as it is supported by the evidence of the eye-witnesses whose evidence is both reliable and trust-worthy and is also supported by other circumstances proved in the case. It seems to us that where there is a conflict between the opinion of two experts the Court should normally accept the evidence of the expert who, evidence is corroborated by direct evidence of the case which according to the court is reliable-. In the case of The Queen v. Ahmed Aly & Ors.(1) a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court in a some-what similar situation observed as follows "Dr. Duncan may have given his evidence like an intelligent man, but it is not the proper way to try on mere theories (1) 1 1 Sutherland Weekly Reporter Criminal

Thus taking an over-all view of the picture presented by the prosecution case we find that there is sufficient evidence against the accused to prove the charge of murder against them. The evidence of the eyewitnesses is fully corroborated by the medical evidence, the evidence of the recoveries, the evidence of the Ballistic expert and the evidence of P. W. Balbir Singh who deposed regarding the extra judicial confession made by the accused Piara Singh. The learned Sessions Judge regarded the extra judicial confession to be a very weak type of evidence therefore refused to rely on the same. Here the learned Sessions Judge committed a clear error of law. Law does not require that the evidence of an extra judicial confession should in all cases be corroborated. In the instant case, the extra judicial confession was proved by an independent witness who was a responsible officer and who bore no animus against the appellants. There was hardly any justification for the Sessions Judge to disbelieve the evidence of Balbir Singh particularly when the extra judicial confession was corroborated by the recovery of an empty from the place of occurrence.