1. This judgment shall dispose of the criminal appeal No. 336 of 2003 along with criminal reference No.1 of 2003 and also the criminal appeal No. 59 of 2003. In criminal appeal No. 336 of 2003 the original accused No.3 Naveen Chandra is the appellant while his parents, namely, Smt. Kamla Devi and Nanda Ballabh, original accused No.2 & 1 respectively, are the appellants in criminal appeal No. 59 of 2003. Since, the original accused No.3 Naveen Chandra has been sentenced to death, a reference No. 1 of 2003 has been referred to us. With the consent of the parties, we have heard all the three matters together. Since, the facts and evidence are common in all the three matters and since all the three accused were tried in a single trial, all the three matters are being disposed of by this common judgment. For the purpose of this judgment, we shall be referring to the accused appellants by their original accused numbers in the Sessions Trial.

2. All the three accused came to be tried by the Sessions Judge, Bageshwar in Session Trial No. 30 of 2001, wherein all the three accused were charged for an offence under section 302 read with section 34 Indian Penal Code on the allegation