P.B.Suresh Kumar, J.

Accused 1 and 3 in S.C. No.1043 of 2008 on the files of the Additional Sessions Court-V, Thiruvananthapuram, who stand convicted and sentenced for the offences punishable under Section s 143 , 147, 148 and 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code ( IPC ), preferred the above appeals challenging their conviction and sentence in the said case. Among the appeals, criminal appeal No.312 of 2016 is preferred by the first accused and criminal appeal No.568 of 2016 is preferred by the third accused.

2. One Chandu @ Santhosh Kumar was brutally murdered by a group of persons at about 9 p.m. on 23.09.2003 while he was sitting in an auto rickshaw in front of a hotel named Hotel Sunoj on the southern side of the road leading to Chackai from Pettah. The brother-in-law of Chandu who rushed to the scene hearing the screaming having found the dead body