PRAYAGRAJ, July 24 -- Observing that in a free fight, each participant is responsible only for their own act, the Allahabad high court has acquitted four women while upholding the conviction of two men in connection with a 1984 clash arising out of a land dispute. "When it is not clear from evidence which party was the aggressor in a clash, then it would be deemed that it was a free fight, where each person is responsible for their own act," Justice Sanjiv Kumar observed in his July 21 judgment while deciding an appeal against the June 1988 judgment of the additional sessions judge/special judge (EC Act), Lalitpur. An FIR was lodged by one Mannu Lal on September 20, 1984, alleging that the accused had forcibly started harvesting crops on a disputed 6.45-acre parcel of land at Nazarbagh Kunwa in Basatguwa village. According to the prosecution, an altercation broke out between the two sides, which escalated into a clash involving lathis and sickles. Members of both sides sustained injuries in the violence. The clash also resulted in the deaths of two members of the accused side - Zalim and Bhagirath - following which a cross-case under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was registered against 15 members of the informant's side. In 1988, the trial court convicted 12 accused but released them on probation for one year on the condition of good conduct. The convicts challenged the judgment before the high court in 1988. During the pendency of the appeal, six of the appellants died and the proceedings stood abated against them. The appeal, therefore, survived only for the remaining six appellants - four women and two men....