SARDER BASHA Vs. STATE REPRESENTED BY THE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE appeals are directed as against the judgment passed in S.C.No.13 of 1999 dated 08.02.2005 on the file of the learned Assistant Sessions Judge, Karur, wherein the appellants in both the appeals were convicted and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for ten years and to pay a fine of Rs.1,000/- each in default to undergo simple imprisonment for six months for the offence punishable under Section 395 I.P.C and the sentences were ordered to run concurrently.

(2.) THE nitty-gritty, the gist and kernel, the warp and woof of the case of the prosecution as stood exposited from the records could be portrayed thus: THE accused Nos.1 to 9 conjointly acted together in concert with each other to plunder the bus passengers and in pursuance of such cahoot, they travelled in the Government Transport Corporation Bus bearing Registration No.TN-27-N-0664; while the bus was negotiating along the bye-pass road between Karur Navalnagar and Panduthakaran Pudur towards Salem, in between 04.00 a.m., and 04.30 a.m., on 05.03.1998, one among the accused under the knife point intimidated the driver of the bus to drive the bus slowly and thereby enabled the other accused to loot the remaining passengers other than the accused out of total sixty five passengers in the bus and thereby those passengers were relieved of their valuable articles and the accused decamped with the booty. THEreafter, the driver of the bus lodged the complaint Ex.P.1 with the police which resulted in the police registering a case in Cr.No.90 of 1998 under Section 397 I.P.C.

(3.) THE prosecution marched P.Ws.1 to 36 during trial and Exs.P.1 to P.49 were exhibited along with M.Os.1 to 18.