1. The three appellants together with four others were tried by the Sessions Judge of Kozhikode for the offences under S.147, 332, 307 and 477 of the IPC. The case against them was that they formed themselves into an unlawful assembly with the common object of assaulting certain officers of the Sales Tax Department who were conducting a surprise inspection of the shop belonging to one of the accused and in furtherance of that object they caused hurt to one officer and attempted to murder another and also snatched away the account books of the shop which had been taken by the officers for inspection. The learned judge acquitted four of the accused persons and convicted the appellants for offences under S.332 and 477 sentencing each to rigorous imprisonment for a period of one year on the first count and four years under the second, the sentences to run concurrently.

2. The prosecution case briefly is this: Pws.1, 2 and 3 are Intelligence Officers attached to the Kozhikode Circle of the. Sales Tax Department. While conducting surprise inspections of shops to detect cases of Sales Tax evasion, they entered the shop of the first appellant (accused 1). Pw.1 asked the accused