[Judgment of the court was delivered by S.NAGAMUTHU, J.]

The appellants are the accused 1 to 4 and 7 in SC.No.40/2007 on the file of the learned District and Sessions Judge, Nagapattinam. Including the appellants, there were a total number of sixteen accused. They stood charged for the offences u/s.147, 148, 341, 302 and 302 r/w 149 IPC. By judgment dated 12.07.2011, the Trial Court acquitted accused 5, 6, 8, 10 to 16 from all the charges. Accused No.9 [Amirdhalingam] died during pendency of the trial and hence, the charges framed against him automatically abated. The Trial Court convicted and sentenced the appellants for the following offences:-

Challenging the said conviction and sentence, the appellant is before this Court with this appeal.

2. The case of the prosecution in brief, is as follows:-

[a] The deceased in this case was one Senthilkumar. P.W.1 is his brother. P.W.1 is a driver in the State Transport Corporation Limited. The deceased had earlier fallen in love with one Vembu, sister of A1 and A2. It is alleged that though on the earlier occasions, the deceased had promised to marry her, at a later point of time, he declined to marry her and deceived her. A marriage proposal was finalised for him with another girl. The betrothal was to take place on 10.12.2003. On that day, the said Vembu came to the spot and developed quarrel with a view to prevent the betrothal being performed. In connection with the same, there was a panchayat held ; but no compromise could be arrived at. Thereafter, Ms.Vembu made a complaint against the deceased to the police on 16.12.2003. During enquiry, into the said allegation made in the complaint, at the police station, some politicians and other villagers participated. In that meeting, a compromise was reached, by which, Vembu withdrew the complaint. But the family members of Vembu were not satisfied with the same. A1 and A2, who are the brothers and A3 to A16 who are either the relatives or the friends of A1 and A2, developed grudges against the deceased on account of the above occurrence. This is stated to be the motive for the present occurrence.

[b] On 18.04.2004 at about 10.00 a.m., the deceased had gone out of his house to the Bazaar for purchasing some groceries. By about 12.00 p.m., P.w.1 along with P.W.2 proceeded towards Ozhugaimangalam village to participate in a temple festival. When they were nearing the house of one Amirthalingam, they found a huge crowd of people. In that crowd, many of these accused were present and the others were hiding. On seeing these accused standing with weapons, P.W.1 developed a fear that some untoward incident was going to take place. At that time, P.W.1 and P.W.2 found the deceased coming from the opposite direction in a cycle. With a view to save the deceased, P.W.1 tried to rush towards the deceased so as to ask him to escape from the scene of occurrence as these accused were waiting for the deceased. But the accused prevented him from proceeding further. In the meanwhile, the deceased had come near the place of occurrence. On seeing the deceased, the accused surrounded him and started inflicting cut injuries on him using the aruvals. It is the further case of the prosecution that all the sixteen accused were armed with weapons and each one had a role to play