Judgement

BOSE, J : This is a case of rioting in which two police constables were killed. Thirty one persons were put up for trial. The learned Sessions Judge acquitted twenty one of them on all the charges and acquitted the remaining ten of the most serious charge of all, namely the offence falling under the Sections of the Travancore Penal Code which correspond to S. 302, I.P.C., read with S. 149.

But she convicted them on several of the lesser charges and imposed sentences ranging from two to five years on each count and directed that the sentences should run consecutively except in the cases of accused 5 to 8 and 18. She sentenced each of them on only one count and so there was only one sentence.

2. The convicts appealed to the High Court and the State of Travancore-Cochin also appealed against the acquittals on the murder-cum-rioting count.

3. The High Court dismissed the appeals made by the ten accused and allowed the appeals against the acquittals and imposed the lesser sentence of transportation in each case. These ten accused now appeal here.

4. The accused are said to be communists. Two of them, namely numbers 30 and 31, were arrested on 27-2-1950 at about 1 p.m. and were conf