The absence of a proper charge in a criminal trial was deemed a material error that may have misled the accused persons in their defense and occasioned a failure of justice, leading to the decision to direct a new trial upon charges properly framed.

1. These appeals and the reference arise out of Sessions Case No. 27 of 1957 on the file of the Additional Sessions Judge of Quilon sitting at Alleppy. There were originally five accused persons in the case. Of these, one, namely, the 2nd accused, died pending the trial, while another, namely, the 5th accused, has been acquitted. Of the remaining three, the 1st accused has been convicted under S.302 I. P. C. and sentenced to death and it is for the confirmation of this sentence that the reference has been made. He has also been convicted under S.449 I. P. C. and sentenced to three years' rigorous imprisonment for that offence The 3rd accused has been convicted under S.324 I. P. C. and sentenced to two years' rigorous imprisonment; and the 4th accused has been convicted under S.302 read with S.34 and under S.449 and 324 I. P C. and sentenced to concurrent terms of rigorous imprisonment for life, for three years, and for two years respectively. These three accused have filed separate appeals against their convictions and sentences.

2. We do not propose to enter into the merits of the case since we are satisfied that the charges framed against the accused are so defective as to necessitate a retrial in the interests of justice. The purpose of a charge is to tell an accused person as precisely and concisely as possible of the matter with which he is charged and S.221 to 224 of the Criminal Procedure Code give clear and explicit directions as to how a charge should be drawn up. It has been repeatedly held that the framing of a proper charge is vital to a criminal trial and that this is a matter on which the judge should bestow the most careful attention. We are constrained to observe that it does not appear to us that attention has been bestowed on the charges framed in this case. They are long and rambling documents setting forth the entire evidence for the prosecution and abounding in a wealth of unnecessary detail; and yet they do not give the accused reasonable notice of the matter constituting the offences with which they stand convicted.

3. The prosecution case was that, on the morning of the 10th December 1956, owing to some previous enmity, the five accused formed themselves into an unlawful assembly with the common object of murdering the deceased and went in a body to a barber's shop where the deceased was sitting and chatting with Pws.1 and 3 while awaiting the arrival of the barber who had gone out. The 1st accused was armed with a sword-stick, the 2nd accused with a ferruled stick, and the 3rd and 4th accused with ordinary sticks. The 5th accused was unarmed. The 1st and 2nd accused rushed into the shop and dealt the deceased a number of blows on his head with the weapons they were carrying, and as a consequence thereof the deceased suffered a large number of injuries four of which were each of them, in itself, sufficient to cause death, and to which the deceased succumbed that after-noon while he was being carried to the hospital. Seeing the assault on the deceased Pws 1 & 3 went out of the shop the latter after an unsuccessful attempt to intervene. Thereupon Pw. 3 was attacked by accused 3 and 4 who had stationed themselves in front of the shop, and they gave him a number of blows with the sticks they were carrying. Then the 4th accused went into the shop and gave the deceased, who has lying on the floor half dead, a blow with his stick. The 5th accused also, it was said, entered the shop and asked the 1st accused to lend him his sword-stick so that he could finish off the deceased, but on being assured by the 1st accused that the deceased had already been safely despatched he came out. The five accused then ran away northwards taking their weapons with them. Within an hour pw.1 went to the police station and made the report, Ext. P-2, on which the case was registered and investigated.

4. The charge against the 1st accused mentioned S.141,148,449,494/ 149,302,302/149 and 324/149, that against the 3rd accused