SHANKARAN NARAYAN Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellants in the appeal stand convicted in S.C. No. 514/2001 on the file of the Additional Court of Sessions, Tuticorin, for offences under Section 302 r/w Section 34 I.P.C. (5 counts) and Section 307 r/w Section 34 I.P.C. For the offence of murder, each one of them stands sentenced to be hanged till their death and for the other offence, each one of them stands sentenced to undergo 7 years RI. Consequent to imposing death sentence, the Court of Sessions made a reference to this Court and it is R.T. No.2/2003. THE convicted accused have also filed a separate appeal namely C.A. No. 204/2003. Since both the proceedings arise out of one sessions case, we are inclined to dispose of the same by this common judgment. Heard the learned counsel on either side.

(2.) FOR convenience sake, we will refer to the five deceased in this case D-l, D-2, D-3, D-4 and D-5. D-5 is the wife of D-l and D-4 is their daughter. D-2 is the younger brother of D-l while D-3 is the brother of D-4. A-l to A-3 are brothers. A-3 is the husband of D-4. The case of the prosecution is that at 7.15 a.m. on 30.8.2000, when all the deceased along with P.W.s 1 to 3 and a few others went to the village of the accused to unite A-3 and his wife D-4, all the accused sharing the common intention, fatally attacked the five persons, out of whom four died on the spot while one died in the hospital, a few days later. In the course of the same transaction, they also made an attempt on the life of P.W.2 and he luckily survived. To substantiate the charge, the prosecution examined three witnesses as eye witnesses to the occurrence, out of whom, P.W.2 is an injured eye-witness. Let us summarise in short here under the oral evidence of P.W.I:

(3.) A cut injury over dorsal aspect of right wrist about 3 cm x 2 cm x 1 cm.