Govinda Menon, J.-The appellant has been sentenced to death by the learned Sessions Judge of Ramnad division for having caused the death of four unfortunate and innocent children and sentenced to terms of imprisonments for having caused grievious hurt, etc., under sections 324 and 326, Indian Penal Code, to eight other persons, namely, P. Ws. 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 11 and 15 and another. It is unnecessary to dwell at any length about the details of the prosecution story, or the evidence of the witnesses examined at the trial. For, the appellant has admitted throughout that he has caused the death of the children and has also caused grievous hurt to the witnesses aforesaid. Immediately after the murders, he rushed to the police station with the blood-stained aruval in his hand, surrendered himself and gave the weapon into the hands of the police officer. He made a statement to the police and thereafter he was sent before the Taluk Magistrate of Ramnad who recorded a statement (Exhibit P. 17) in the nature of a confession. There, the appellant stated that he was hungry on that day as he did not take food and that when he was in that fatigued condition on account of hunger, a Muslim accosted him, saying, “who are you”? He had an aruval in his hand with which he cut the person who accosted him. Then he ran; when people chased him, he found children there and he cut and killed four children, and also caused injuries on others. The reason ascribed for the senseless and terrible act of his is that he was suffering from hunger; and none of the relatives supported him and that therefore he did all these things on account of anger caused by hunger. This statement was adhered to in the committing court as well as before the Sessions Court. The learned Sessions Judge, in spite of his admission before him that the appellant committed the crime, examined the witnesses after recording a plea of “not guilty” and went into the case exhaustively; with the result, that he came to the conclusion that the evidence of the witnesses examined justified the confession made by the accused as regards the act. The learned Sessions Judge therefore found him guilty under section 302, Indian Penal Code convicted and sentenced him as stated above.

We have carefully gone through the evidence of the various eye-witnesses in the case and considered the other circumstances and we are in entire agreement with the learned Sessions Judge that the appellant caused the death of the four innocent children and caused grievous hurt to the witnesses mentioned by us in the earlier portion of the judgment. Srimathi Seethamahalakshmamma, appearing for the appellant, does not dispute the facts as outlined by us above nor the conclusion from those facts that it was the appellant who caused the death of the children and the injuries on the witnesses. But the learned counsel argues that the facts of the case come within the ambit of the exception chapter of the Indian Penal Code, namely, section 84, which says,

“Nothing is an offence which is done by a person who, at the time of doing it, by reason of unsoundness of mind, is incapable of knowing the nature of the act, or that he is doing what is either wrong or contrary to law.”

In support of her argument, our attention was invited to Geron Ali. v. Emperor1, In re Vodde Subbigadu2 and Wazir v. Emperor3. It seems to us that the circumstances of those cases are not ad idem with the facts of the present case. Here, there can be no dispute that the appellant knew that he was causing the death of the four children. It is not as if the appellant was under a hallucination that what he was doing was not the taking away of the life of a human being but that he was probably breaking a pot or some other inanimate object. The appellant fully knew that he was committing homicide and he also knew that the act which he he was doing was both wrong and contrary to law, because, he ran to the police station, surrendered himself and produced the we