JUDGMENT

KRISHNA IYER, J.:—A toddy tapper, young in age and a mental case, returning after a day-long toil with his tool, the sickle, and tense in state was provoked by some trivia and went into tantrums and inflicted triple killings, all in one sombre sunset. This bleeding tragedy led to prosecution and conviction, appeal and confirmation, the unimpeachable offence being murder. The defence of insanity tested by the hoary rule in McNaghtens case, codified in the Indian Penal Code over hundred years ago, was rightly dismissed, the testimony of dementia falling far short of the prescription in Sec. 84, I.P.C. We have discovered no error in the factual finding and must therefore confirm the conviction. Indeed, leave itself was granted confined to the question of sentence.

2. The trial Judge, whose horror at the multiple homicide unsheathed the terror of death penalty, decreed capital sentence on the culprit, and the High Court, deeply disturbed by "the brutal triple murder", set its seal of approval on guilt and punishment.

3. In the agonisingly sensitive area of sentencing, especially in the choice between life term and death penalty, a wide spectrum of circumstances attracts judicial