[Criminal Appeal No.1116 of 2011]. This appeal under Section 2(a) of the Supreme Court (Enlargement of Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction) Act, 1970 assails a judgment and order dated 8th February, 2011 passed by the High Court of Andhra Pradesh at Hyderabad, whereby the High Court has partly allowed the acquittal appeal filed by the State and while reversing the judgment and order passed by the trial Court convicted the appellants for offences punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC and sentenced them to undergo imprisonment for life besides levying a fine of Rs.1,000/- each. In default of payment of fine the appellants have been sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of one month each. The appellants have been further convicted for an offence punishable under Section 324 read with Section 34 of the IPC and sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for three months each with the direction that the sentences shall run concurrently. Briefly stated the prosecution case is that on 27th April, 2003, at around 7.00 p.m., the appellants along with one Papisetti Praveen who was arrayed as accused no.4 stopped the deceased-Bezawada Srinivasa Rao and PW.1-Alapati Seshadri while the latter were on their way home at Bethavolu Park Centre - the place of occurrence. An altercation between the accused persons on the one hand and the deceased and PW-1 on the other had according to the prosecution taken place on the previous day i.e. on 26th April, 2003, while the deceased and PW.1 were bringing some palmyrah nuts from the fields. PW-3-Sonti Koteswara Rao, a shopkeeper who runs a pan shop in the vicinity, claimed to be a witness to that incident and had intervened and pacified the parties which passed off without any physical harm to either side except that according to the prosecution appellant no.1- Chinnam Kameswara Rao had threatened the deceased with dire consequences.
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