Mack, J.-This is a strange and somewhat painful case of a youth aged 16 being found guilty of the murder of one Govindan Servai by cutting his neck with an aruval while he was asleep in his house on the night of 18th July, 1951. According to the prosecution and the evidence in this case the appellant also similarly cut one Malayappa Konan while he was asleep in his house on the other side of the street. Malayappa Konan hacked in the neck also died instantaneously. The learned Sessions Judge of Tiruchirapalli tried the present case only as regards the murder of Govindan Servai and found him guilty under section 302, Indian Penal Code and while of the opinion that his action in cutting an innocent sleeping man in the neck with an aruval was “very heinous” sentenced him to the lesser sentence for reasons which completely fail to convince us. The extenuating circumstance which appears to have been found was that the appellant committed this murder in fear that the deceased was intending to make a report against him at the police station regarding a theft.

2. The motive evidence in this case may be briefly set out. Appellant was a youth who lived near the house of Govindan Servai and witnessed the latter counting some money he had borrowed from a Chettiar the morning previous to the murder and putting it into a pot. That night Govindan Servai’s mother P.W. 1 swore that she saw the appellant stealing the money from a pot and running away with it. She chased him but he made good his escape. Krishnan Servai P.W. 1. the younger brother of deceased also joined in a vain pursuit. The next morning Govindan Servai complained to respectable elders of the village including P.W. 12 and the other deceased Malayappa Konan who sent for the appellant and questioned him. The evidence is to the effect that the panchayat advised Govindan Servai to make a report to the police. It was that night that Govindan Servai and this respectable panchayatdar Malayappa Konan were fatally cut by an aruval while they were asleep. At 3 a.m. that morning the appellant was found by the Station-writer P.W. 5 of Karamakudi police station about 4 or 5 miles from the scene of offence with a blood-stained aruval, M.O. 1 tucked under his armpit. Appellant also made a judicial confession in which he said that he cut first Malayappa Konan and then Govindan Servai while they were asleep in their houses with an aruval because his mother and his elder sister taxed him at 10 p.m. that night with stealing this money from Govindan Servai and brought pressure on him to tell the truth to the police informing him that Malayappa Konan was himself a witness to that theft. He described in his confession how he could not get any sleep and that he fell a victim to a temptation first to cut these two persons with a bill-hook and then to go and surrender himself at the police station. There can be no doubt on the evidence of this confession and also from the evidence of P.Ws. 1, 2 and 3 that it was the appellant who cut Govindan Servai with an aruval while he was asleep murderously on the neck with the intention of killing him. The conviction by the learned Sessions Judge is correct. On a perusal of the judgment I thought it was a fit case in which notice should issue for enhancement of sentence.

3. My learned brother is opposed on principle to a criminal Bench enhancing the sentence of transportation which the trial Court has seen fit to impose to the extreme penalty. I fully appreciate his great reluctance to interfere in such a case though personally I am prepared myself to do this most unpleasant duty in a proper case where the death sentence, in our opinion, ought definitely to have been passed. In deference to my learned brother’s view I agree that this appeal should be dismissed without any enhancement in the circumstances.

4. There appears to be an impression gaining prevalence amongst Sessions Judges that the law of murder has, in recent years, undergone a radical alteration in the m

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