The main legal point established in the judgment is the need to consider aggravating and mitigating circumstances before imposing the death penalty, as laid down by the Supreme Court in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab and Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab.

PADMANABHAN, J.

The five appellants were convicted by the Sessions Judge, Trichur for offences punishable under sections 143, 147, 148 and 302 read with S. 149 of the Penal Code and each of them was sentenced to be hanged by their neck till death for the offence under S. 302 read with S. 149 IPC without awarding any separate sentence for the other offences. The proceedings are submitted for confirmation of the death sentence under S. 366 of the Code of Criminal procedure.

2. The prosecution case is that on account of political enmity they formed themselves into an unlawful assembly at about 9.30 a.m. on 24-3-1984 in the Onaparambu bus stop, the common object being to murder Gopalan, President of the Perinjanam Panchayat, committed rioting armed with M.Os. 1 to 5 daggers and stabbed him to death while he was standing on the bus stop. Deceased was a local leader of the Marxist Communist Party and as its representative he was the local Panchayat President. The appellants are prominent workers of the R.S.S. in the locality. The occasional clash between the two organisations and the consequent enmity is alleged to be the motive.

3. Though Gopalan was taken in a car first to the Kuttilakkad Govt. Hospital, the Doctor saw him in the car itself and directed him to be taken to the Cranganore Govt. Hospital since his condition was serious. On reaching the Hospital at Cranganore another Doctor examined and declared him dead. Both these doctors were not examined. Shortly thereafter P.W. 1 gave Ext. P1 first information statement which was recorded by P.W. 15 Sub-Inspector in the hospital at 10.45 a.m. The case was registered by him. P.W. 16 Circle Inspector who conducted investigation prepared the inquest report Ext. P3. Ext. P7 is the post-mortem certificate prepared by P.W. 12.

4. Death of Gopalan due to the injuries sustained by him is clear from the depositions of PWs. 1 to 3 and other witnesses, from Ext. P3 inquest prepared by P.W. 16 as well as from the evidence of P.W. 12 and Ext. P7 post-mortem certificate prepared by him. If the prosecution evidence is accepted it is a cold blooded murder committed in broad day light in a public place. So also the evidence, if accepted, unlawful assembly, its murderous common object, rioting armed with deadly weapon and murder committed in furtherance of common object must all be taken as proved. On these aspects there was no dispute also and hence we do not propose to consider those aspects in detail. The appellants disputed the time and place to occurrence as well as their involvement.

5. Sufficiency of motive was one of the contentions raised. It is said that the allegation is only a general political rivalry without any individual or collective motive based on any specific enmity and it cannot be taken as sufficient to commit such a grave crime. That factual contention itself does not appear to be genuine. It is true that the appellants, when questioned under S. 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, denied their connection with R.S.S. That appears only to be a ruse to escape liability. P.Ws. 1 to 3 and 8 are persons of the locality who know the deceased and the appellants very well. All of them categorically said that the deceased was a prominent marxist leader of the locality and the Panchayat President and the appellants are friends and District workers of the R.S.S. They also said that in the locality clashes between Marxists and R.S.S. people were frequent and there was long standing enmity between the two factions. If anything more was required that was elicited in the cross-examination of P.W. 15 when it was brought out that deceased Gopalan himself was an accused in a case for having assaulted R.S.S. workers and in some other cases he was giving protection to accused belonging to marxist party against R.S.S. workers. If these facts will not constitute motive, we doubt what else will. Further there cannot be any guideline or yardstick to decide what will operate as sufficie