INDRAJIT CHATTERJEE, J. - (1.) THE present appellants were convicted in respect of the charge punishable under Sections 302 read with Section 149 and 307 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code (hereinafter called as the Code) as passed by the Learned Sessions Judge, Birbhum at Suri in Sessions Trial No.1 (March) 1990 which arose out of Sessions Case No.64 of 1989. As per the impugned judgment dated 30th March 1989, the Trial Court was pleased to convict all the 46 appellants before us and sentenced them to suffer imprisonment for life for the offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Code. They were further sentenced to pay fine of Rs.5,000/ - (five thousand) each in default to suffer imprisonment for a further period of one year each.
(2.) THE appellants were also found guilty in respect of the charge punishable under Section 307 read with Section 149 of the said Code and were sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for a period of seven years and each were further sentenced to pay fine of Rs.1,000/ - (one thousand) each in default to suffer imprisonment for a period of six months.
(3.) THE FIR was handed over by one Madhusudan Ghosh (PW -1), to the SubInspector Pravat Kumar Mukherjee (PW -20), the Officer -in -Charge of Bolpur Police Station on 19.11.1987 at about 10:25 hours, when the police force was camping at Muluk Adarshapalli. The said FIR was forwarded to the Officer -inCharge Bolpur Police Station through Home Guard Ram Narayan Ganguly (PW - 17) for starting a case under Sections 148/149/326/307/302 of the Code and as such Bolpur Police Station Case No.9 dated 19.11.1987 was registered at 11:05 hours. It was stated in the FIR that the incident took place on 19th of November, 1987 in which three persons of village Muluk within Bolpur Police Station, District Birbhum were murdered and one was seriously injured. The incident took place between 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. at Kalitaladanga at Village Muluk when the victims Sk. Mannan, Ziyauddin Sk., Sudir Ghosh and Nirmal Ghosh @ Patkula were going through the village road. At that time one procession was coming from the other side. The members of the procession were armed with Sarki, Lathi, big Sticks and Tangi and they attacked the victims mentioned above. The first three persons mentioned above died at the spot and the fourth one died on that date at Bolpur Sub -Divisional Hospital. It was also stated in the FIR that the members of the procession attacked Sk. Taiab (PW -2) and Abu Hayat (not examined) and injured them seriously. In the FIR in all 41 persons were named. PW -20 took up the investigation and in the process he conducted the inquest on the dead bodies of the deceased, collected the post -mortem reports and bed -head tickets of the two victims, Abu Tayeb and Abdul Hayat, arrested three persons from the place of occurrence and thereafter submitted charge -sheet against 56 accused persons for the offence punishable under Sections 148/149/326/307/302 of the said Code. On enquiry it was found that Sk. Enamul and Babul Sk. was the same person. Thus number of accused persons came down to 55.;