(1.) This batch of criminal appeals and a revision petition arise out of the judgment in S.C.No.550 of 2013 on the file of the Additional Sessions Court-VI, Thiruvananthapuram. Six accused persons were charge-sheeted for offences punishable under Sections 120B, 396, 302, 201, 328, 465 and 471 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (in short, " IPC "). After examining 72 witnesses on the prosecution side and eight witnesses on the defence side and also after considering 244 documents exhibited for the prosecution, 25 documents for the defence, X1 series court exhibits and 143 material objects, the trial court came to a conclusion that the accused 1 to 5 are guilty of criminal conspiracy for committing murder, dacoity, forgery, using as genuine a forged document which is known to be forged, administering a stupefying drug on the deceased with intent to cause hurt and causing disappearance of evidence of the offence committed. Apart from the above, they found to have committed grave offences of murder and dacoity pursuant to the conspiracy hatched. Imprisonment for life, other sentences for different terms and fine have been imposed on them. 6th accused was found to be not guilty of any of the offences alleged by the prosecution and he is acquitted under Section 235(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (in short, " Cr.P.C .").
(2.) For the sake of convenience, the appellants, who challenged the conviction and sentence, are described hereunder in their respective ranks before the trial court. 1st accused preferred Crl.Appeal No.567 of 2014 assailing the conviction and sentence. 2nd accused filed Crl.Appeal No.1121 of 2015 disputing correctness of his conviction and sentence. Similarly, Crl.Appeal No.576 of 2014 is filed by the 3rd accused, Crl.Appeal No.665 of 2014 is filed by the 4th accused and Crl.Appeal No.800 of 2014 is filed by the 5th accused. Crl.Appeal No.129 of 2016 is filed by the State, challenging correctness of the acquittal of 6th accused. For the same purpose, another appeal, bearing number Crl.Appeal (V) No.21 of 2019, has been filed by a lady, who was examined as PW2 in the trial and who claimed to be the wife of deceased Harihara Varma (in short "Varma", hereafter). She filed the appeal under proviso to Section 372 read with Section 2(wa) of Cr.P.C. Crl. Appeal No.609 of 2016 is filed under Section 454(1) Cr.P.C. by a third party claiming to be the wife of deceased Varma. She is aggrieved by the direction in the trial court's judgment to handover movable properties to PW2, including the precious stones, belonged to Varma on a finding that she is his legally wedded wife.
(3.) Though the trial court found the accused 1 to 5 guilty of murder under Section 302 IPC and also of dacoity with murder defined under Section 396 IPC, it made an observation that there need be no separate punishment under Section 302 read with Section 120B IPC. This reasoning, according to a bench of this Court, which heard the appeals at the time of admission, was clearly illegal. The bench observed that the trial court ignored the fundamental principle that every conviction should be followed by a sentence. No doubt, whether the convict should suffer the sentence consecutively or concurrently is a matter to be judiciously decided by the court. Hence this Court suo motu registered Crl.Revision Case No.5 of 2016.
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