- (1.)APPEAL is at the instance of accused 1 to 5 and 7 to 9 in Sessions Case No. 92 of 1991 before the Sessions Court, Palakkad, Accused 6 and 10 were acquitted. Accused 1 and 4 were convicted under S.302 I. P. C. and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life. Accused 2, 3, 5 and 7 to 9 were also convicted under S.302 read with S.149 I. P. C. and awarded sentence to undergo imprisonment for life. All the accused were found guilty and convicted for offences under S.143 and S.148 and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 3 months under S.143 and for 2 years under S.148. They were also found guilty and convicted under S.447 and S.506(ii) I. P. C. and awarded punishment of rigorous imprisonment for 1 month and 5 years respectively. 9th accused was found guilty of offence under S.326 I. P. C. and accused 1 to 3, 7 and 8 were also found guilty of offences under S.326 read with S.149 I. P. C. and convicted thereunder. They were sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 5 years. Accused Nos. 1, 6, 7 and 8 were convicted under S.342 I. P. C. Accused Nos. 2 to 4 and 9 were also convicted under S.342 read with S.149 I. P. C. They are all sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for six months. Sentences were to run concurrently.
(2.)PROSECUTION case, in brief, is as follows: The accused who are all Marxist Party workers chased deceased Manikandan, who was a worker of R. S. S., on 4-3-1991 at about 10 a.m. Manikandan got into the house of PW 1 and locked the door. Accused threatened PW 1 that unless Manikandan was sent out of the house, her house will be burned and she and members of her family would be done away with. They were not prepared to withdraw on the appeal made by PW 1. When they repeated their threat, PW 1 requested Manikandan to leave their house so as to save herself and members of her family. Manikandan thereupon came out of the house with folded hands and he pleaded the accused not to harm him. But accused 1, 5, 7 and 8 dragged him out of the compound of PW 1 to the road. Accused 2 and 3 pulled out sticks from the fencing and beat Manikandan who tried to ward off the blows with his hands. At that time, 9th accused inflicted two cuts on his hand with a chopper and again inflicted 2 cuts on his leg. Manikandan thereupon fell on his face. At that time, accused 4 and 1 inflicted stab injuries on the back of Manikandan and other accused threw stones at him. Accused then fled from the scene towards the road to the temple.
Pw 20, Sub Inspector of Police, Hemambikanagar, on getting information about some trouble going on at Vallikode, came to the place of occurrence at about 10.30 a.m. He found Manikandan lying on the road in front of the house of Pw 1 with bleeding injuries. Manikandan was taken to the District Hospital, Palakkad and reaching there, he was declared dead.

(3.)PW 20 went back to the scene of occurrence and recorded First Information Statement, Ext. P1 from PW 1. A crime was registered and Ext. P29 is the F.I.R. PW 21 who took up the investigation, conducted the inquest. Ext. P4 is the inquest report and Ext. P5 is the scene mahazar. Photographs of the dead body as well as scene of occurrence were taken by PW 15 and PW 14 respectively. Post mortem was conducted by PW 17 and Ext. P26 is the post mortem certificate. Accused were arrested on 6-3-1991 and 7-3-1991. On the basis of information furnished by 1st accused, MO 2 knife was recovered as per Ext. P8 mahazar and MO 1 knife was recovered as per Ext. P7 mahazar as per the information furnished by the 4th accused. On the basis of the information furnished by 9th accused, MO 3 chopper was recovered as per Ext. P9 mahazar. Charge was framed against the accused under S.143, 148, 449, 506(ii), 342 and 302 read with S.149 I. P. C. All the accused pleaded not guilty. When questioned under S.313 of Cr. P. C., they repeated their plea of innocence.
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