- (1.) Pushparajan, the appellant in C. A. No. 57 of 1988 and Murali, the appellant in C. A. No. 248 of 1986 were respectively accued 3 and accused 4 in Sessions Case No. 112 of 1981 in the Sessions court of Quilon. They along with accused 1 and accused 2, after trial, were convicted for offences under S. 302 and 324 Indian Penal Code read with Section 34 thereof and each of them was sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life by judgment dated 12/02/1982 of the Sessions court. All the accused preferred a common appeal from thatjudgment before the High court of Kerala, which by its judgment dated 6/04/1984 dismissed that appeal by affirming the judgment of the Sessions court. The present appeals are filed by accused 3 and accused 4, individually and separately, on special leave.
(2.) The case of the prosecution was this: That at about 11 p. m. on the moonlight night of 18/07/1981 accused 1 to 4 along with three others, armed with deadly weapons, formed themselves into an unlawful assembly with the common object of murdering one Divakaran. They, by pelting stones on the house of Divakaran made him come out of his house, attacked him, stabbed him with daggers and beat him with sticks. The injuries so inflicted on him by A 1 to A 4 made him fall on the ground and succumb to those injuries in a short time thereafter while his brother-in-law Sivaprasad, Public Witness 1 and his sister Ponnamma, Public Witness 2 and others who had gathered there were attempting to remove him to a nearby hospital for treatment by securing a motor car. Public Witness 1, Public Witness 2 and others, who had gathered there placed the body of the deceased Divakaran in a compound adjacent to the house of Public Witness 2 till police who were to be informed of the death, could reach the place.
(3.) By 7.30 a. m. on 19/07/1981, the next day, the Sub-Inspector of Police at Adoor Police Station, who received the information of the incident from Public Witness 1, recorded the first information statement and registered the crime. The investigation of the crime was, thereafter, done by Public Witness 14, the Circle Inspector of Police of the same station. He, on completion of the investigation, laid the charge-sheet against accused 1 to 7 for the crime, before the Judicial First Class Magistrate, Adoor, who committed the case to the Sessions court, Quilon for trial.;