1 Rajiv Gandhi, a former Prime Minister of India was assassinated on 21-5-1991 at a place called Sriperumpudur in Tamil Nadu. The assassin was an adolescent girl named Dhanu who was made into a human bomb and she got herself exploded at 10.19 P.M. at very close proximity to the visiting former Prime Minister. In a trice the life of Rajiv Gandhi was snuffed out and his body was smashed into smithereens. As for the assassin nothing except a few pieces of charred limbs and her sundered head were left behind. In the explosion lives of 18 others also got extinguished. Investigation pointed to a minutely orchestrated cabal, masterminded by some conspirators to extirpate the former Prime Minister from this terrestrial terrain. In the final charge sheet made by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) all the 26 appellants now before us, were arraigned as members of the conspiracy which targeted, inter alia, Rajiv Gandhi. The Special Judge who tried the case found all the 26 appellants guilty of various offences charged, the gravamen of them being S.302 read with S.120B IPC. All of them were hence convicted of those offences and all of them were sentenced to death.

2 These appeals by rig