JUDGMENT :

HEMANT GUPTA, J.

1. The Criminal Appeal No. 1266 of 2010 preferred by Mahendran (Accused No. 3), and Criminal Appeal No. 1260 of 2010 preferred by Ravi (Accused No. 1), Singaravelu (Accused No. 2), Iyappan (Accused No. 4), Rajendran (Accused No. 5), Selvaraj (Accused No. 6), Karunakaran (Accused No. 7), Arunachalam (Accused No. 8) and Sundaramoorthy (Accused No. 9) arise out of a common judgment by the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on 26.09.2008. The High Court has acquitted Mohan (Accused No. 10), Ravi (Accused No. 12), P. Mohan (Accused No. 13), Palanivel Thevar (Accused No. 14) and Kannan (Accused No. 15) from all charges by granting them benefit of doubt. The accused are referred to with reference to their status before the trial court.

2. The prosecution had put on trial twenty-four persons for various offences, but the learned trial court found the charges proved only against Accused Nos. 1-10 and 12-15 and sentenced to imprisonment as per the order passed in respect of the offences proved against them, whereas, Manivasagam (Accused No.11), Ganapathy (Accused No. 16) Muruganandam (Accused No. 17), Saravanan (Accused No. 18), Kathiah (Accused No. 19), Maiyilai