JUDGMENT ANNA CHANDY, J. :- This State appeal is against the acquittal of the tour accused persons tried by the Trichur Additional Sessions Judge under Sections 324, 447, 326 and 302 read win Section 34, I.P.C. 2. Accused 1 with his wife accused 3, son accused 2 and daughter accused 4 and the deceased Lona with his wife P.W. 2 and sons Ouseph and Porinchu P.Ws. 1 and 3 and daughter Kunjilakutty P.W. 4, were living in two contiguous properties and having a boundary dispute for a considerable time in the past. According to the prosecution on 25-1-1961 at about 6-30 A.M. P.Ws. 1 and 2 went out to bail water for their cocoanut and arecanut plants. Finding the leaves of some cocoanut and arecanut palms belonging to accused 1, causing obstruction to the flow or water P.W. 2 pulled down those branches when accused 1 seeing this trespassed into Lena's property and hit P.W. 2 with a spade. P.W. 2 cried and P.W. 1 her son went near her whereupon accused 1 gave him a hit on the head with the self-same spade. Now P.W. 1 also cried aloud, when accused 2 armed with s rice-pounaer (M.O. 4), accused 3 with a chopper and accused 4 a stick rushed out to the scene and trespassed into Lona's property. Accused 2 gave a blow to P.W. 1 and felled him. Hearing the cries of his wife and son, Lona came out and interfered, when accused 1 hit him on the face twice with M.O. 3 which made him fall down. Then accused 2 and 3 also gave blows on Lona's head. Hearing the cries, P.Ws. 3 and 4 arrived on the scene. On seeing them accused 1 and 2 lifted and carried Lona to their property and threw him down and again hit him on the head, when P.Ws. 3 and 4 rushed to the side of Lona, accused 2 aimed a blow on the head of P.W. 3 which fell on accused who warded off the blow and asked him to stop. Not paying heed to the advice accused 2 again hit P.Ws. 3 and 4. Accused 4 is alleged to have inflicted blows on the fallen person. 3 and 4 rushed to the side of Lona, accused 2 aimed a blow on the head of P.W. 3 which fell on accused who warded off the blow and asked him to stop. Not paying heed to the advice accused 2 again hit P.Ws. 3 and 4. Accused 4 is alleged to have inflicted blows on the fallen person. When more people gathered, accused 1 and 2 went back to their house with the weapons followed by accused 3 and 4 who kept back to pull down the leaves of an arecanut plant in their own property, P.Ws. 3, 11, 13 and 14 removed Lona to his house and laid him down along with the other injured. P.W. 15 who arrived later on getting the news is alleged to have got Lona's version of the incident and lodged the First Information in the Trichur Cusba Police Station. Lona died in the hospital the same day at 1-15 P.M. 3. Accused 1, 3 and 4 had sustained injuries in the course of the same incident and the first accused who was removed to the hospital along with Lona and others also gave a statement which was recorded by the police. According to him, the prosecution version of the incident is false and distorted. He says that himself and P.W. 2 the wife of Lona quarreled over the removal of a kytna plant standing on the boundary and hearing the noise Lona and his children came with rice-pounder and chopper and stick and destroyed his arecanut plants, and beat him. According to him the whole incident took place in his property and the version given by the other party that to took place in Lena's property and subsequently Lona was removed by the accused to their property is false. Both the cases were investigated and while referring accused's case as false the murder case was charge-sheeted. The first accused filed a protest complaint which was enquired into by the Magistrate and committed along with this case to the Sessions Court. Both the cases ended in acquittal. The same version of the incident is given by the first accused in his Section 342 statement and also in his evidence as D.W. 1. The other accused gave similar versions. 4. The death of Lona and the fact that P.Ws. Both the cases ended in acquittal. The same version of the incident is given by the first accused in his Section 342 statement and also in his evidence as D.W. 1. The other accused gave similar versions. 4. The death of Lona and the fact that P.Ws. 1, 3 and 4 on the one hand and accused 1, 3 and 4 on the other sustained injuries in the course of the incident are not disputed. In this case apart from the post-mortem certificate of Lona there are eight wound certificates. In this connection, I wish to point out the desirability of Sessions Judges incorporating the wound certificates and the post-mortem certificates in their judgements so that the appellate judges may not be put to the painful necessity of attempting to decipher what sometimes resemble pencil-written hieroglyphics. References to medical certificates will be facilitated if they are incorporated in the printed judgement itself. 5. The prosecution sought to prove their case By the evidence of P.Ws. 1 to 4 the injured and P.Ws. 5, 11, 12, 13 and 14. The learned Sessions Judge has found their evidence unacceptable and thought it not sate to act on it. He further found that the version of the incident as given out by them is improbable and unsupported by the circumstances disclosed in evidence. The explanation offered by them for the injuries sustained by the accused was also found unacceptable. The charge under Section 34 was found to be untenable and the learned Judge found it impossible in the nature of the evidence to find which of the accused was responsible for causing the injuries and under what circumstances. 6. In this case we have two versions of the incident, the one contained in the statement given by P.W. 15 at the Police Station at 9.30 A.M. (vide Ext. P-14) and the other found in the statement made by the first accused before the police at 12.30 (vide Ext. D-13) and our attempt should be to find out which version is more probable bearing in mind the basic fact that the burden is always on the prosecution to prove their case beyond doubt. 7. To start with, there are some suspicious features about the first information statement itself. P.W. 15 who gave it is neither an injured person nor an eye-witness. 7. To start with, there are some suspicious features about the first information statement itself. P.W. 15 who gave it is neither an injured person nor an eye-witness. His case is that he was attracted to the place by a report of the incident when Lona who was found injured told him how the occurrence took place and asked him to report the matter to the police. An attempt is made to incorporate the statement made by the dying man in his own words in Ext. P-14 evidently to serve the purpose of a dying declaration. The statement is a very detailed one as to the occasion for the encounter, who started it and when and how Lona was injured by the accused and; how after Lona was attacked in his own property he was carried by the accused into their property and dropped there and again beaten. However to a pointed question put by the Public Prosecutor to P.W. 15 to repeat the very words in which Lona narrated the incident to him he stopped by saying that (original in Malyalam, omitted here Ed.) P.W. 15 is definite that neither any of the other injured nor the neighbours who gathered at the place (inducing the eye-witnesses in this case) gave him any further details and to get over the embarrassing situation came out with the explanation that all that is contained in Ext. P-14 except the specific words mentioned by him as stated by Lona, happened to be seen by him forgetting the fact that admittedly he came to the scene only after the entire occurrence was over and merely saw Lona and the other injured lying in their house. The significance of this intriguing situation is all the more enhanced when it is admitted by the witness that the original report of the occurrence that he got was from one Kesavan the first accused in Ext. D-2 criminal case filed by accused 2 and that he himself gave evidence for the accused in that case. Even if the evidence of P.W. 15 is to be accepted, we are not able to place any reliance on the dying declaration alleged to have been made by Lona to him. D-2 criminal case filed by accused 2 and that he himself gave evidence for the accused in that case. Even if the evidence of P.W. 15 is to be accepted, we are not able to place any reliance on the dying declaration alleged to have been made by Lona to him. As observed by his Lordship Mahajan, J. in Ram Nath v. State of Madhya Pradesh, AIR 1953 SC 420 : "Unless one is certain about the exact words uttered by the deceased, no reliance should be placed on vernal statements of witnesses and the oral declarations made by a deceased." Even if the words mentioned by P.W. 15 as having been spoken by the deceased are to be accepted as true, it does not help one to decide the issue in this case as to how the occurrence started and where it took place. (Here her Lordships discussed in Paras 8 and 9 the circumstances which while making the prosecution version of the occurrence improbable indicated the truth of the accused's version generally, and proceeded :) 10. We may now refer to the State Prosecutor's contention that the prosecution is not bound to explain the injuries on the accused. She argues that the ruling in Sebastian David v. Sirkar Prosecutor, AIR 1950 Trav-Co. 9 is not good law and that the reliance placed on it by the Sessions Judge seems to have vitiated the appreciation or the entire prosecution evidence. The above decision is to the effect that : "When there are injuries on both sides (the accused and the complainant) the prosecution must cogently explain how the accused sustained injuries. Without such explanation the prosecution evidence will not be complete and no Court will be prepared to act on evidence which leaves a lacuna." We can very well understand that a doctrinaire insistence on throwing out every case where the prosecution fails to explain how the injuries on the accused were caused may lead to undesirable results. Needless to say the effect of such failure depends on the facts of each case. In cases where injuries on the accused were not sustained at we time and place of occurrence or where they might have been self-inflicted, naturally the prosecution is not expected to offer any explanation for the injuries. Needless to say the effect of such failure depends on the facts of each case. In cases where injuries on the accused were not sustained at we time and place of occurrence or where they might have been self-inflicted, naturally the prosecution is not expected to offer any explanation for the injuries. But the position is different in a case where the prosecution admits that both parties sustained injuries in the course of the encounter. Here again if there is acceptable evidence to show that the accused were in the aggressive and only minute or trivial injuries were sustained by them which could well have been unnoticed by the prosecution witnesses, failure to explain the injuries may not count. However, when in an occurrence in broad day-light as in this case the accused sustained injuries comparatively no less serious than those inflicted on the prosecution party and the witnesses are in a position to account for each and every abrasion or contusion found on the latter, then if they were to say that they failed to see how the accused sustained injuries or if they come out with apparently unacceptable explanations for such injuries the witnesses lose their status as disinterested and unbiased witnesses and Courts may well feel it unsafe to act on such evidence. (Here Her Lordship assessed the evidence of the eye-witnesses in Para 11 and concluded :) Having analysed the evidence of the witnesses who speak to the occurrence we are not prepared to say that the appreciation of their evidence by the trial Court is faulty or that the Court was not justified in not acting on their evidence. 12. In the unsatisfactory nature of the prosecution evidence it is not necessary to go into the merits of the defence case though there are indications that the defence case is more probable. (After discussing the evidence in the rest of this Para her Lordship concluded :) 13. All things told we do not find any jurisdiction for interfering with the order of acquittal. It is confirmed and the appeal by the State is dismissed. Appeal dismissed.