JUDGMENT Prem Prakash, J. - Faquire (16) of village Bahadurpur, Police Station Denagaon, district Kheri, has directed this appeal against his convictions under Section 302 and 323 Penal Code; he has been sentenced to a term of life imprisonment under Section 302 and in respect of the other charge he has been sentenced to a term of six months' rigorous imprisonment upon an indictment which stated that in the night intervening 2nd/3rd May, 1969, he committed the murder of Gajraj, his first cousin, and caused simple hurt to his mother Smt. Mullo; the deceased and the injured were the inmates of the house which was, also, in the occupation of the accused and his family. 2. A typigraphical account of the locality may conveniently be given here. The house, in which the two families resided, was situate in the Abadi of village Bahadurpur; there is a kothri in the southern portion of the house, the exit of which faces north; adjoining this kothri there is a tarwaha; the kothri and Tarwaha were in possession of the accused and his family; in the western portion there are two kothris. In front of the southern kahn there was a tarwaha which along with this kothri was in possession of the deceased and his family. To the north of these kothris there is a dalan which is commonly used by both the families, although they were messing separately. At a distance of four or five houses there was a cattle-shed in which both the families used to tother their cattle. To the east of the house is the house of Om Prakash (P. W. 3) and further to the east is the house of Thamman. 3. The inmates of the house were Hori Lal (P. W. 1), the father of the deceased; his brother, Ram Sahai, the father cf the accused; Smt. Rajrani (D. W. 1), the wife of the accused, Smt. Mullo (P. W. 7), the mother of deceased; Smt. Surja (P. W. 2), the widow of the deceased, and their son, Sewaram (P. W. 8), a lad of 11 years. It admits of no controversy that Gajraj was murdered in his house in the night intervening the 2nd and 3rd May, 1969; his body lay on a cot in the inner courtyard of the house. The autopsy performed by Dr. It admits of no controversy that Gajraj was murdered in his house in the night intervening the 2nd and 3rd May, 1969; his body lay on a cot in the inner courtyard of the house. The autopsy performed by Dr. M. C. Sharma (P. W. 4) disclosed the presence of four ante mortem contused wounds, they being a contused wound 3 cm X 2 cm X skull deep trensverse in right temporal region; a contused wound 2 cm X 1 cm X muscle deep vertical on anterior side of lobule of right ear; contused wound 1 cm X1 cm X muscle deep 1 cm above injury No. 2 on anterior side margin of the right ear and a contused wound 2 cm X1 cm X bne deep on right side chin with fracture of mandible underneath. In the medical opinion, death had been caused by the compression of the brain as a result of the injuries; there was compression under the fracture of the skull. The weapon of attack admittedly was kobri (Ext. 1) which is a piece of wood attached to the plough. The appellant surrendered in court on May 26, 1969. When the Sub-Inspector went to the spot, he was not there at his house nor the witnesses or the inmates of the house had detained him after the commission of the alleged crime. 4. The essential facts leading to the charge, as they have been accepted by the trial court, are these: Five or six days prior to this incident the deceased had brought his bullocks from the khalilian at about sun-set for being to thered in his shed. Smt. Rajrani, the wife of the accused, happened to go to the shed at that hour to collect dry cow-dung cakes. The bullock of Gajraj rushed towards Rajrani upon which she ran into the saar. Gajraj caught hold of her hand and attempted to outrage her modesty upon which the lady raised hue and cry. She complained of the conduct of Gajraj to her father-in-law Ram Sahai; Ram Sahai thereupon in the evening convened a Panchayat in the chaupal of Hori Lal. The Panches warned Gajraj not to repeat' his indecent behaviour. According to Flori Lal (P. W. 1), the father of the deceased, Ram Sahai and the accused were always since then giving out that they would kill Gajraj. The Panches warned Gajraj not to repeat' his indecent behaviour. According to Flori Lal (P. W. 1), the father of the deceased, Ram Sahai and the accused were always since then giving out that they would kill Gajraj. In the fateful night Gajraj with his son Sewaram (P. W. 8) was sleeping on a cot in the court-yard of the house; Smt. Surja was sleeping on another cot at a distance of one spen; Smt. Mullo (P. W. 7) was sleeping towards the west of the cot of Gajraj on another cot; Fa quire accused was sleeping under his tarwaha, his wife Smt. Rajrani being away to her father's place and being not present in that night at her house. At about mid-night Smt. Surja woked up on hearing the shouts raised by her son Sewaram (P. W. 8). Smt. Surja and Smt. Mullo saw the accused strike Gajraj with a kobri. Om Prakash (P-W. 3) also came there upon the cries raised by them. Mullo rushed towards Gajraj to save him, but the accused also caused her hurt which felled her to the ground. When Om Prakash challenged the accused, he ran through. the main door of the house towards the north. The victim succumbed to his injuries immediately after. In the early hours of the morning at 7-30 a.m. Hori Lal lodged a report of the occurrence at the police station, the distance between the police station and village Bahadurpur being eight miles. In the report Hori Lal gave the background of the incident in result of which Panchayat had been convened by the father of the accused and also he mentioned that the Panches mediated in the grievance made by Ram Sahai against Gajraj. The Investigating Officer found the blood-stained cot lying in the court yard of the house; he also took into his possession the bloodstained clothes which the deceased was wearing and the kobri which had been left on the cot. 5. The plea of the accused was the acknowledgement of his having inflicted blows by kobri upon Gajraj, but in order to escape from the criminal responsibility for the Act, he stated that four or five days before the occurrence Gajraj had. 5. The plea of the accused was the acknowledgement of his having inflicted blows by kobri upon Gajraj, but in order to escape from the criminal responsibility for the Act, he stated that four or five days before the occurrence Gajraj had. committed rape on his wife in the cattle-shed of the house which misconduct was, however, left with a warning to him by the Panches, that six days after the Panchayat his wife shouted that Gajraj was committing "bura kam" with her, that when he saw Gajraj running from outside the tarwaha, he under a sudden and grave provocation picked up the kobri, which was left near his cot, and gave blows to him. Gajraj fell on his cut. In the early hours of the morning he went away to village Behdapur in support of his plea he examined his wife Smt. Rajrani to state that in the fateful night she was sleeping in the tarwaha of the house when the deceased attempted to commit illicit intercourse upon her. She woke up and made a noise which brought to the place of Faquire, her husband, who was sleeping in the angan of the house he caused blows with kobri to Gajraj who fell down on the cot. 6. The learned Sessions Judge has disbelieved the defence version and has held that Smt. Rajrani was not present in the house that night and that at all events when other inmates of the house were sleeping in the close-by angan, Gajraj would not have dared to commit illicit intercourse with the lady, more so when his misconduct towards her had been brought to the notice of the panchayat which had warned him to mend himself. After rejecting the defence version, the learned Sessions Judge returned a finding of guilty under Secs. 302 and 323 of the Penal Code. 7. Counsel for the appellant has strenuously contended before us that the circumstances, which transpire from the evidence in the case, demonstrate to a degree of reasonable probability that in all likelihood the act was committed by the appellant under some grave and sudden provocation having been caused by an attempt on the part of the deceased to molest Smt. Rajrani sleeping in the tarwaha of the house. The burden of proof would be on the prosecution to satisfy the Court that the murder was unprovoked. The burden of proof would be on the prosecution to satisfy the Court that the murder was unprovoked. If the evidence raises in the mind of the Court a reasonable doubt whether it was provoked or not, the proper verdict should be the conviction for culpable homicide not amounting to murder (See Joseph Hyllard v. The Queen, 1957 Appeal Cases 635 at p. 642. The "Golden Thread" rule laid down in Woolmington v. Director of Public Prosecution, 1935 Appeal Cases 462 is still the bed-rock of criminal jurisprudence as administered in our country. If at the end of and on the whole of the case there is a reasonable doubt created by the evidence given by either the prosecution or by the prisoner as to whether the prisoner killed the deceased with malicious intention, the prosecution has not made out a case and the prisoner is entitled to acquittal. It is in the light of this essential principle that we shall adjudge the nature and extent of the criminal responsibility of the appellant in the present case. 8. At the very outset, it would be significant to mention that the weapon of attack was not a deadly weapon but it was a piece of wood (commonly attached to the plough) and it was lying in the court yard of the house. If there was a deliberate intention to kill the deceased when he lay on his cot, a deadly weapon like a gandasa could have been used normally as weapon for the accomplishment of the object. 9. Smt. Surja (P. W. 2), the widow of the deceased, has admitted in her cross-examination that there was no verbal altercation between the two families in the interval between the Panchayat and this occurrence. From this statement it would appear that after the intervention by the Panchayat there was no ground of grievance left for the accused and his father and, that being so, it does net stand to conviction that five or six days after the Panchayat when nothing had happened since then, the appellant would make without any proximate cause a deadly assault upon the deceased who along with others was sleeping in the angan of the house. 10. 10. The third circumstance, which has weighed with us, is that the prosecution has not adduced an iota of evidence which could show as to what transpired between the deceased and the accused immediately before this incident. Why and under what circumstances the appellant picked up the wooden piece and dealt blows upon Gajraj lying on the cot, the evidence fails to answer. When the relations, as I have just said, between the parties had not further embittered, it does not stand to reason why in the absence of any thing else the accused would be perpetrating the murder of the deceased. 11. The prosecution, also cannot, in the face of overwhelming circumstancial evidence, deny that Gajraj had committed indecent assault upon Rajrani five or six days prior to this occurrence of which a complained had been made by the father of the accused to the Panchayat. Radhev Shyam (P. W. 11), one of the Panches, has acknowledged in his cross-examination that Ram Sahai had complained to them that Gajraj had committed "bura kam" with his son's wife. Surja (P.W. 2), the widow of the deceased, was constrained to admit in her cross-examination that her husband had said to her, "The Panches have given me an opportunity to mend. They said that you are not mending yourself". From this statement it would thus appear that what took place five or six days before the incident in the cattle-shed was not an ordinary matter, but the deceased was guilty of some indecent act to his cousin's wife. The antecedents of the deceased were, therefore, not credible and it was quite likely that he repeated the misconduct again. 12. The learned Sessions Judge has found that Rajrani was not present in the house in that night, but that finding is against the weight of evidence. In the first place, in the first information report Hori Lal did not state regarding her absence from the house that night. It may be that this recital in the first information report, was not material, but when we find Smt. Mullo not stating to that fact in the course of investigation, the claim of the prosecution witnesses that she was away from the house cannot be implicitly relied upon. Rajrani had produced herself in the witness-box; she has stated the circumstances which led to the beating of the deceased by her husband. Rajrani had produced herself in the witness-box; she has stated the circumstances which led to the beating of the deceased by her husband. She states that when she was sleeping in the tarwaha, the accused attempted to commit sexual intercourse upon her and when she shouted, her husband woke up and assaulted him with the kobri lying in the angan of the house. In the background of the circumstances adverted to above, and having regard to the fact that the prosecution was unable to prove before the Court as to what was the proximate cause of the incident that night, and having taken into consideration the fact that the deceased had out raged the modesty of the woman five or six days before, and having regard for the fact that nothing had happened top cause further strain the relations be ween the two families after the Panchayat, the statement of Smt. Rajrani rests on a trustworthy basis. Her testimony is in accord with the probabilities of the case. 13. Having viewed the evidence in that night, we accept the plea of the accused that he committed the crime under a grave and sudden provocation when the deceased attempted to commit sexual intercourse upon the accused's wife sleeping in the tarwaha of the house. His act, therefore, falls within the ambit of Section 304, Part 1, Penal Code. 14. As regards the offence under Section 323 Penal Code, we may state that no offence has been made out. We have it from the statement of Smt. Mullo herself that when she came to the rescue of the deceased, she was pushed aside by the accused and fell down on the ground. The fall on the ground caused her the injury. We may note that Dr. Yashpal (P. W. 12) did not find any external mark of injury on her body. 15. In the result, we partly allow this appeal and, setting aside the convictions and sentence under Secs. 302 and 323 Penal Code, we convict the appellant for an offence under Section 304, Part I, Penal Code. He is sentenced to a term of five years' rigorous imprisonment. The appellant is on bail. He shall surrender to his bail forthwith. His bail bonds are cancelled. 302 and 323 Penal Code, we convict the appellant for an offence under Section 304, Part I, Penal Code. He is sentenced to a term of five years' rigorous imprisonment. The appellant is on bail. He shall surrender to his bail forthwith. His bail bonds are cancelled. The A. D. M. (J) concerned shall issue non-bailable warrant for his arrest and after he either surrenders before him or is brought before him under arrest, he shall be sent to jail to serve out the sentence. A compliance report shall be submitted to this Court within six weeks from today.