JUDGMENT

Swatanter Kumar, J.-Eight accused, namely, Panchanan Tarafdar @ Chotka, Uttam Das, Dipak Das @ Mou, Manoranjan Debnath @ Behari, Bishu Saha @ Chor Bishu, Satyajit Das @ Sadhu, Ganesh Das and Shyamal Ghosh, were charged with offences under Sections 302, 201, 379, 411 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for short, the ‘IPC’). All these accused were found to be guilty of the offences with which they were charged by the Trial Court vide its judgment dated 13th September, 2005. After hearing them on the quantum of sentence, vide order dated 14th September, 2005, finding the offence to be that in the category of rarest of the rare cases, the Trial Court awarded sentence of death to all the accused persons for the offence under Section 302 IPC and directed that they be hanged by neck till they are dead, subject to confirmation by the Calcutta High Court. For the offence under Section 201 IPC, they were sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of seven years and to pay a fine of Rs.5,000/- each, in default to further undergo simple imprisonment for one year and for the offence under Section 379 IPC to undergo imprisonment of three years and fine of