JUDGMENT :

KRISHNAN, J.

1. These four appeals are by the four accused persons convicted in the same sessions trial separately or in batches (one of them being duplicated). They had been sent up under sections 302 and 302 read with sections 149 and 148, Indian Penal Code. However, the charge regarding unlawful assembly having failed, they were acquitted of the counts under sections 148 and 149. These four out of nine persons accused were convicted under section 302 read with section 34 and sentenced to imprisonment for life. The offence concerned was the killing of Yeshwantrao alias Balu by several persons attacking him, one using a gun, another using an axe and others using lathis, death being instantaneous. All, it was alleged, were attacking the deceased in furtherance of their common intention of causing such injuries as would necessarily cause death.

2. Criminal Revision No. 344 is an application by State for the enhancement of punishment and the awarding of death penalty in view of the seriousness of the crime.

3. The facts of the case are the following:— Some ten miles outside Indore there is a Co-operative Agricultural Society named Malwa Sahakari Samuhik Krishi Samiti with its