JUDGEMENT

Behera, J.:- The appellants in Criminal Appeals Nos. 105, 106 and 112 of 1977, who figure as respondents in Government Appeal No. 101 of 1977, while functioning as police personnel attached to the Nuagaon Police Station in the district of Puri, stood charged under Ss.302, 342, 201, 203, 331 and 323, all read with S.34 of the Indian Penal Code, for having wrongfully confined Muli Naik (hereinafter referred to as the 'deceased') a resident of village Mahitama, for committing murder of the deceased, causing evidence of the offence of murder to disappear by hanging the dead body of the murdered deceased to a tree in order to screen themselves from legal punishment, giving false information that the deceased had committed suicide, causing grievous hurt to the deceased for the purpose of extorting from him a confessional statement in a case under Ss.457 and 380 of the Indian Penal Code (hereinafter called the Code) in which the deceased and Magi Nails (P.W. 5) were the suspects and causing hurt to Magi Naik while he was in the Police lock-up.

2. We would now proceed to State the case of the prosecution. In July, 1975, the accused Trinath Dash, accused Brundaban Swain and the accu