LOKEMAN SHAH AND ANR. ETC. ETC.

STATE OF WEST BENGAL ETC. ETC.

APRIL 11, 200 I

[K.T. THOMAS, R.P. SETHI AND S.N. PHUKAN, JJ.]

Penal Code, 1860-Sections 142: 149 & 302-Murder-Unlawful assembly-Murder of Police personnel by accused in a communal riot-First accused sentenced to death by Trial Court-High Court upholding conviction

but altered sentence to life imprisonment-Conviction on basis of confessional C statemen!-Validity of-Held, confessional statement valid-Accused was member of unlawful assembly-Conviction and sentence upheld-Criminal Procedure Code, 1974--Section 164.

Second accused sentenced to death by Trial Court and High Court- Conviction on basis of evidence of eye-witness and corroboration of his state- D ment by another witness-Admissibility of-Held, such evidence is admissible in evidence as a corroborative material-Conviction upheld-However, sentence altered to life imprisonment-Evidence Act, 1872--Section 157.

Two police personnel, including a Deputy Commissioner, were brutally murdered after chasing them in a communal riot which broke out on account of demolition of a mosque during Holi celebrations. Four persons, which included two accused appellants, were convicted for murder and sentenced to death by Trial Court. On a retrial ordered by High Court, the conviction of the appellants were confirmed by the Trial Court. The High Court, while confirming the conviction of both, alterrd the sentence from death to life imprisonment in respect of the first accused and upheld the death sentence of the second accused. Hence the appeals by the two accused. State Government also filed an appeal before this Court for enhancement of sentence to the first accused.

The first appellant contended that bis conviction, which was based on his statements to Judicial Magistrate, was not a confessional statement; that the statement was not voluntarily given since one of the co-accused who was arrested along with him died in lock-up which proved physical torture by the Police; that he had no common intention with others to murder the Police personnel; that there is nothing in his statement to show

that he shared knowledge with others to murder the Police personnel; and that the confession, without the corroboration, cannot be acted on for the purpose of conviction. The second appellant contended that the deposition PW-24, cannot be treated as wholly reliable; and that there is no corroboration for the evidence of PW-24.

Dismissing the appeals, the Court

HELD : 1.1. The statement made by the first appellant does incrimi nate himself very much. Whether a statement recorded by Judicial Magistrate under Section 164 Cr.P.C. from an accused is confessional or non-confessional is not by dissecting the statement into different sentences and then to pick out some as not inculpative. The statement must be read as a whole and then only the Court should decide whether it contains admissions of his incriminatory involvement in the offence. If the result of that test is positive then the statement is confessional, otherwise not.

Applying that test, the statement of the first appellant is a confessional statement. [1102-A-C]

Balbir Singh v. Stale of Punjab, AIR (1957) SC 216; Pyare Lal Bhargava

v. State of Rajasthan, AIR (1963) SC 1094; Ram Chandra Prasad Shanna v.

Stale of Bihar, AIR (1967) SC 349; Hemraj v. The Stale of Ajmer, [1954) SCR 1133 and M. Narsinga Rao v. State of A.P., [2001) 1 SCC 691, referred to.

1.2. The death of the co-accused in the lock up is not a sufficient ground to eclipse the voluntariness of the confession of the first appellant, which was recorded by the Judicial Magistrate. There is no allegation that the Judicial Magistrate has not adopted all the precautions enjoined by F law before recording the confession. No other formality prescribed under law has been infringed by the Judicial Magistrate. [1103-D-E)

1.3. The confession shows that the first appellant got himself involved in the episode and the role played hy him. He did not say in so many words that he shared the common object of the unlawful assembly, which G usually nobody would say. [1103-H; 1104-A]

1.4. It is within the radius of permissibility that Court can rely on a factual presumption for the purpose of reaching one conclusion. Thus, the confessional statement, if admissible and reliable, can be used by the Court for drawing inferences as to whether the confessor shared

0 the com- H mon object with the rest of the members of the unlawful assembly. For that

LOKEMAN SHAH v. STATE OF WEST BENGAL 1097

purpose the Court will take into account other materials available in A ... evidence. There is no warrant for the proposition that the Court cannot proceed from the confession even a wee bit for the purpose of knowing whether the confessor had entertained any particular intention while per petrating the acts admitted by him in his confession. [1104-E-G]

1.5. The appellant joined the unlawful assembly knowing fully well B

that it had already become unlawful as its common object was to chase the persons whom the rioters believed to be responsible for defilement of the mosque. It is immaterial that the deceased police personnel had no part in the destruction or defilement of any mosque, but the rioters believed him to be the one. The chasers carried with them explosive and lethal weapons. c In all such broad circumstances, it would be insane to presume that the common object of the chasers was something less than finishing the prey whom they were chasing after. The conviction passed by the Trial Court

y and the High Court in respect of the first appellant is upheld. [1106-D-F)

Mirzaji v. State of U.P, AIR (1959) SC 572; Mathur Naickerv. State of D

T.N., AIR (1978) SC 647 and Samant v. State of Maharashtra, AIR (1979) SC 1265, referred to.

1.6. The positional importance of PW-24 as a witness for the occur rence is significant. The incident happened in his own house and in his E presence. He would thus be one of the most natural witnesses to speak about what happened in front of him. Neither any cause for PW-24 to have any bias against the appellant for falsely implicating him nor any difficulty in indentifying the appellant among the assailants was shown. His evidence has secured corroboration from the testimony of his father PW-21 who said that his son reported to him of the incident. Such evidence of PW-21 is F

admissible under Section 157 of the Evidence Act as a corroborative material. The conviction of the offence under different counts passed on the second accused needs no interference. [1100-C-F)

State of T.N. v. Sure sh & Anr., [1998) 2 SCC 372, relied on.

G •

1. 7. Appellants had neither any previous enmity to the victims nor even any acquaintance with them. They acted in a rage of fury blindfolded

~ by communal frenzy. In most of the communal riots, the participants are by and large illiterate and indoctrinated people. Such a case cannot be treated as rarest of the rare cases. The sentence passed on the second H

A appellant under Section 302 read with Section 149 IPC is altered to life imprisonment. (1106-G-H; 1107-C-D]

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Criminal Appeal No. 784 of 2000.

From the Judgment and Order dated 1.12.99 of the Calcutta High Court in Crl.A. No. 274/92 and Death Ref. No. 11/96.

WITif

Criminal Appeal No. 785 of 2000.

A.K. Ganguli, S.K. Bhattacharya, V. Rama Subramanian, Ms. Sumita Mukherjee and Assis Mathew for the Appellants.

Altaf Ahmad, ASG, T.C. Sharma, Ajay Sharma, Ms. Neelam Sharma and Ms. Paukhuri for the Respondents.

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by

THOMAS, J. On the day of Hali celebrations, seventeen years ago in Calcutta, (as the city was then known) an infuriated motley mob carmined one street not with "Gula!" (which is often used by ecstatic celebrants) but with human blood. They ran berserk blinded by communal frenzy and unleashed a terror of murder spree on 18.3.1984, along Fatehpur Village Road, which was within the limits of Garden Reach Police Station. Two among the innocent casualties of the gory episode were a young JPS officer and his security guard, both of whom were violently murdered.

Four persons, out of a number of accused arraigned before the Sessions Court for murder and other allied offences, were convicted and sentenced to death by the trial court at the first round. But on a retrial as ordered by the High Court the Sessions Court confined the conviction to two persons (the appellants herein) and awarded the sentence of death to both of them.

A Division Bench of the High Court of Calcutta, while confirming the conviction of both, has chosen to uphold the death penalty for appellant Nasim @ Naso, and altered the sentence passed on appellant Lakeman Shah from death to life imprisonment, besides lesser sentences for lesser counts of offences. Both of them have filed appeal before this Court by special leave.

State of West Bengal is not prepared to spare Lakeman Shah from

J...

.._ extreme penalty for murdering two of its police personnel and hence the State A has filed an appeal for enhancement of the sentence to the extreme penalty.

As we heard both the appeals together we have the advantage of disposing of both of them together by this common judgment.

A communal ri<:>t broke out on the morning of 18.3.1984. Tue rioters were running on a rampage hither and thither with bombs, brickbats and other B weapons, prowling for human prey. Vinod Kumar Mehta, a 35-year old JPS officer was then thei Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) at the Port Division, Calcutta. Tue Garden Reach Police Station falls within the territorial limits of his domain and henoe he set out to quell the riots, escorted by his security guard Mukhtar Ali (a police constable) besides some other police personnel. When they felt that the infuriated rioters were thirsting for victims they thought it safe to go into a mosque expecting asylum. But the Imam of the mosque was not disposed to afford a shelter to such people. So they went out of the mosque. Tue security guard Mukhtar Ali ran into the house of a private individual while the Deputy Commissioner ran into the house of a police constable (PW-21 Abdul Latif Khan). As the rioters were chasing him PW-24 Md. Hadis Khan son of PW-21 Abdul Latif Khan gave asylum to the Deputy Commissioner in his house.

The rioters spotted the fleeing cops. The Deputy Commi8'ioner in order to save himself from the fury of the chasing mob got into the bathroom of the house of PW-21 but a few of the marauders pursued him up to that place and caught him and killed him. The security guard was also intercepted by the blood thirsty assailants and he too was killed. Not having satisfied with the death of these police personnel the killers mutilated their corpses, stripped them off, tethered them and tried to incinerate the dead bodies which succeeded only partly as the bodies remained charred.

We may refer to the evidence focussing on the two appellants alone.

As against appellant_ Nasim @ Naso, PW-24 Hadis Khan has deposed that he saw that accused among the assailants inflicting two blows with an iron rod on the head of the Deputy Commissioner of Police, the first blow caused his helmet to slide off, but the second blow fell on the head of the victim.

Tue doctor who conducted the autopsy noted as many as twenty two antemortem injuries on the dead body of the Deputy Commissioner, out of which

the injuries on the head consisted of a depressed comminuted fracture involving the right frontal and parietal and left temporal bones of the skull crushing tl1e brain. According to the doctor the said injury could be inflicted H

llOO

SUPREME COURT REPORTS

[2001] 2 S.C.R.

A by an iron rod and that was sufficient in the ordinary course of natnre to cause death.

Shri A.K. Ganguli, learned senior counsel who argued for the appellants contended that the testimony of PW-24 cannot be treated as wholly reliable and hence there is no legal justification in relying on his evidence being the solitary item as against appellant Naso. Learned senior counsel alternatively contended that there is no corroboration for the evidence of PW- 24 (Md. Radish Khan) in so far as he implicated appellant Naso. It must be pointed out that the trial court and the High Court have concurrently accepted the evidence of PW-24 (Md. Hadis Khan) as reliable. Normally the Supreme Court would not upset such a finding unless it is shown that his evidence is affiicted with such serious infinnity.

The positional importance of PW-24 (Md. Radish Khan) as a witness for the occurrence is significant. 111e incident happened in his own house and in his presence. He w01tld thus be one of the most natural witnesses to speak about what happened in front of him. We are not told of any cause for PW- 24 to have any bias against appellant Naso for falsely implicating him nor are we told of any difficulty for PW-24 to identify Naso as one among the assailants particularly when the witness ascribed a specific serious role to that accused. His evidence has secured corroboration from the testimony of his father PW- 21 Abdul Latif who said that his son told him that Deputy Commissioner of Police took shelter in his house and that appellant Naso and some other persons (whose names were also mentioned) assaulted him. Such evidence of PW-21 is admissible under Section 157 of the Evidence Act as a corroborative material. (vi de State of T.N. v. Suresh and Anr., [1998] 2 SCC 372.

Thus we have no reason to dissent from the findings of the trial court in so far as the involvement of appellant Naso in the murder of Deputy Commissioner of Police (V.K. Mehta) is concerned. The conviction of the offences under different counts passed on that appellant thus needs no interference. The question whether tpe sentence of death passed on him need be altered or not can be dealt with while considering the appeal filed by the State of West Bengal for enhancement of the sentence passed on the coappellant Lakeman Shah.

Now we proceed to consider the appeal filed by Lakeman Shah. The only evidence which prosecution succeeded in adducing against him is a

...

LOKEMAN SHAH v. STATE OF WEST BENGAL [TIIOMAS, J.] 1101

statement (Ext.13) which is described as confessional statement of appellant Lakeman Shah as recorded by PW-51 P.K. Deb (Snb Divisional Judicial Magistrate). That statement was acted on by the trial court and the High Court as a confession voluntaiily made by the appellant, and the conviction of that appellant was made entirely on the said material. Before dealing wiU1 the contention advanced by Shri A.K. Ganguli, learned senior counsel we deem it apposite to extract the substance of Ext.13 below:

"At about 10 or 10.30 A.M. Naso, Puttan, Akhtar and Chowdhary came to me for money. They said that money was needed to buy weapons to fight against persons who set fire to the mosque if they created any trouble. I told them that I would also fight out. After they ran away I heard tl1e sound of a commotion around 11.45 A.M. I saw two police officers scampering and many who chased them pelting b1ickbats at them. One policeman in white uniform went to the house of the Mulla and the other police officer in Khaki dress ran straight.

I threw a brickbat when that police ollicer crossed me, but I do not know whether it hit him. He entered the house of PW-21 and he was chased by at.hers who threw b1ickbats at him. I also threw one or two brickbats but I am not sure whether they hit him or not. After some time four persons (Naso, Pnttan, Akhtar and Chowdhary) came from the side ofBattikal mosque. I was also taken by them inside the house

of PW-21. I found the police officer in Khaki dress stai1ding near the E kitchen. When he revealed his identity as the DC some among us said that they did not know whether he was DC or not. Then all the otl1ers caught him, I too caught him. Then Naso hit him wit11 an iron rod on his head, but his helmet fell off. Naso hit him again and then tl1e policeman fell down. Pnttan and Akhtar also dealt blows on him with F deadly weapons. As I could not stand the gushing of blood I left the room."

Shri A.K. Ganguli, learned senior counsel raised a three-pronged attack on Ext.13. Firstly, he said it did not amount to a confession at all. Second is, even assuming that it is a confession it caimot be relied on as the statement G was not voluntary. Third is, even if it can be acted on as a confession it is insufficient to convict its maker for the offence under Section 302 read witl1 Section 49 !PC as the confessor never said tliat there was a common object to murder the police officer. Alternatively, he contended that there is nothing in Ext.13 to show that the confessor shared any knowledge with any others, H

A much less a common object to murder a police officer.

Dealing with the first point we have no doubt that the statement (Ext.13) attributed to accused Lakeman Shah, does incriminate himself very much. At any rate it is not exculpative despite the possibility ol reading one or two sentences culled out separately from the rest of it, in order to say that B they are not tantamounting to inculpative nature. But the test of discerning whether a statement recorded by judicial magistrate under Section 164 from an accused is confessional or non-confessional is not by dissecting the statement into different sentences and then to pick out some as not inculpative. The statement must be read as a whole and then only the court should C decide whether it contains admissions of his incriminatory involvement in the offence. If the result of that test is positive then the statement is confessional, otherwise not. Applying that test on Ext.13 statement we have no doubt that it is a confessional statement.

Learned counsel contended that the confession without corroboration D cannot be acted on for tl1e purpose of entering a conviction. We are unable to agree with the said submission as a legal proposition. Way back in 1957, the Supreme Court has laid down the law in explicit terms that confession if true and reliable can form tl1e basis of conviction. [vi de Balbir Singh v. State of Punjab, AIR (1957) SC 216, Pyare I.al Bhargava

v. State of Rajasthan, AIR (1963) SC 1094 = [1963] Supple 1 SCR 689 and Ram Chandra Prasad Sharma v. State of Bihar, AIR (1967) SC 349 = [1966] 3 SCR 517. Yet this Court said time and again that as a rule of prudence the court must seek other circumstances to corroborate a confession, particularly when the same is retracted. There also the delay involved in making the retraction was considered relevant for a court to F judge regarding genuinene; s of the confession. Even about the extent of corroboration this Court has pointed out as early as in 1954, that if it is insisted that "each and every circumstance mentioned in the confessional statement must be separately and independently corroborated then the rule would become meaningless inasmuch as the independent evidence itself G would afford sufficient basis for conviction and hence it would be unnecessary to call the confession in aid." (vide Hemraj v. The State of Ajmer, [1954] SCR 1133. This was reiterated by a three-Judge Bench of this Court in Balbir Singh v. State of Punjab (supra). This is what the learned Judges observed then:

H "It is necessary to emphasise here that the rule of prudence does not

.,_

require that each aud every circurustauce mentioned in the confession A with regard to the participation of the accused person in the crime must be separately aud independently corroborated, nor is it essential that the corroboration must come from facts aud circurustauces discovered after the confession was made."

Dealing with the contention that a confession was not voluntary learned senior counsel invited our attention to a fact that one of the persons arrested along with the appellaut died in the lock up (his name is Idris) aud that would give sufficient indication as to the physical torture which the persons involved in this case would have been subjected to. Unfortunately neither the prosecution nor the defence could show how Idris died when he was in police custody. The defence did not even bother to ask the investigating officer about the result of the inquiry conducted by a magistrate under Section 176 of the Code of C1iminal Procedure, regarding the death of!dris (if he had died while he was in the lock up the afore-mentioned provision maudates that the inquiry should be conducted by a magi state). In the absence of any such material it is too late in the day for this Court, particularly dealing with the appeal under Article 136 of the Constitution, to use the death of Idris as a sufficient ground to eclipse the voluntariness of the confession of Lakeman Shah which was recorded by a judicial magistrate. In this context we may also point out that there is no allegation that the Judicial Magistrate has not adopted all the precautions enjoined by law before recording the confession. No other formality prescribed under law has been infringed by PW-51 Judicial Magistrate.

It is on the next point (whether anytl1ing more could be built up on the basis of the confession) that Shri Ganguli, learned senior counsel for the

appellant, aud Slrri Altaf Ahmad, learned Additional Solicitor General, ap- F pearing for the State of West Bengal, argued in extenso. Learned senior counsel for the appellauts pointed out that de hors Ext.13 there is not even a shred of evidence for involving accused Lokemau Shah with this crime and hence even if the confession in its full text is received in evidence it is impermissible to add anything to it for the pmpose of building up a conviction G of the confessor. At the first blush we felt that the above contention was impressive. But after hearing Shri Altaf Alunad, learned Additional Solicitor General and after ruminating deeper into it we felt that the contention is not legally acceptable.

The confession shows that appellaut Lokemau Shah got himself in- H

volved in the episode and the role played by him. True, he did not say in so many words that he shared the common object of the unlawful assembly.

Usually nobody would say like that. We may observe that even a witness for prosecution in cases involving unlawful assembly would not testify in court that the accused persons had a particular common object. It is normally the judicial work of the court to make out from proved facts whether a particular accused shared the common object of the assembly. After all, the common object once formed would invariably remain in the minds of the members of the unlawful assembly and it is very seldom that they proclaim it to be heard by others.

A fact is said to be proved when, after considering the matters before

i~ the court either believes it to exist or considers its existence so probable that a prudent man ought under the circumstances of a particular case, to act upon the supposition that it exist•, (vide Section 3 of the Evidence Act). What is required is materials on which the court can reasonably act for reaching the supposition that a certain fact exists. Proof of the fact depends upon the degree of probability of its having existed. The standard required for reaching the supposition is that of a prudent man acting on any important matter concerning him. [vide M. Narsinga Rao v. State of A.P., [2001] 1 SCC 691].

It is within the radius of permissibility that court can rely on a factual presumption for the purpose of reaching one conclusion. Thus, the confessional statement, if admissible and reliable, can be used by the court for drawing inferences as to whether the confessor shared the common object with tl1e rest of the members of the unlawful assembly. For that purpose tl1e court will take into account other materials available in evidence. There is no warrant for the proposition that the court cannot proceed from the confession even a wee bit for the putpose of knowing whether the confessor had entertained any particular intention while perpetrating tl1e acts admitted by him in bis confession. Whether such intention could have focussed on the common object of the unlawful assembly to which he joined depends upon other facts.

Section 149 of !PC consists of two parts. The first part deals with the commission of an offence by any member of the unlawful assembly in prosecution of the common object of that assembly. Second part deals with commission of an offence by any member of an unlawful assembly in a situation where other members of that assembly know to be likely to be committed in prosecution of that object. In either case every member of that

assembly is guilty of the same offence which another members committed in A .prosecution of the common object. The focal point is the common object.

In Mizaji v. State of U.P. AIR (1959) SC 572, this Court vivisected S.149 into two parts and held that the first part means that "the offence committed in prosecution of the common object must be one which is committed with a view to accomplish with tl1e common object". Learned B Judges further observed that "the offence committed must be connected immediately with the common object of the unlawful assembly of which accused were members." If it is to come under the second par~ the court must be in a position to hold that the offence committed was such as the members knew was likely to be committed, even if the offence was not committed in C direct prosecution of the common object. But in that event mere possibility of commission of offence by one of the members of the assembly is not enough. Mere possibility would swing only in the range of "might or might not happen". A higher degree of possibility is required to say that the member of the assembly knew that the offence was reasonably likely to be committed.

In Muthu Naicker v. State ofI:N. AIR (1978) SC 1647, this Court made the following observations, which should always be borne in mind by the courts while considering the application of S.149 of the Penal Code:

"Whenever an uneventful rural society something unusual occurs,

more so where the local community is faction ridden and a fight E occurs amongst factions, a good number of people appear on the scene not \Vith a vie\V to participating in the occurrence but as curious spectators. In such an event mere presence in the unlawful assembly should not be treated as leadipg to the conclusion that the person concerned was present in the unlawful assembly as a member of the unlawful assembly." F

In that case this Court held that where a large crowd collected, and one among them committed a stray assault on a victim. the said assaul~ cannot be treated as an act committed in prosecution of the common object of the unlawful assembly. Nor can the remaining accused be imputed with the knowledge that such an offence was likely to be committed in prosecution of the common object of the assembly. In Samant v. State of Maharashtra, AIR (1979) SC 1265, this Court observed that it is an over statement of law that when a morcha moved on to a stage when it became unlawful any person

who was a member of that morcha must be presumed to share the common object of the unlawful assembly. The col!It must enter satisfaction that a H

particular accused was a member of the unlawful assembly either through his active participation or otherwise. It must further be shown that he shared the common object of the assembly. Of course the court can draw necessary inference from the conduct, but mere presence in the assembly is hardly sufficient to draw any adverse inference against him. The question whether or not the offence having been committed in prosecution of the common object of the assembly is one of the fac~ depending upon facts and circumstances of each particular case.

In this context it is appropriate to refer to Section 142 of the !PC. It pertains to a person who intentionally joins an unlawful assembly and C continues to involve himself in it. The only condition which the section envisages is tl1at the person who joins the unlawful assembly should have been aware of the facts which rendered such assembly as unlawful. If he knew that an unlawful assembly had been formed with a common object and if he has chosen to join it en-route to its destination the person joining midway

can also be fastened with tl1e vicatious liability envisaged in Section 149 of the !PC, unless he drops himself out before reaching such destination.

We have no doubt that appellant Lakeman Shah joined the unlawful assembly knowing fully well that it had already become unlawful as its common object was to chase the persons whom the rioters believed to be responsible for defilement of the mosque. It is immaterial that the deceased V.K. Mehta had no part in the destruction or defilement of any mosque, but the rioters believed him to be the one. We must bear in mind that the chasers carried with them explosive and lethal weapons. In all such broad circumstances it would be inane to presume that tlie common object of those chasers was sometlling less than finishing the prey whom they were chasing after.

For the aforesaid reasons we are not persuaded to interfere with the conviction passed by the uial court and concurred by tl1e High Court, in respect of the appellant Lakeman Shah.

The last and the only remaining aspect is regarding sentence. Appel- G !ants had neither any previous enmity to the victims nor even any acquaintance with them. It is admitted fact that they acted in a rage of fury blindfolded by communal frenzy. We are aware that in most of the communal riots the participants are by and large illiterate and indoctrinated people. When the literate leaders try to keep themselves away, without participating in the H perpetration of crimes though, perhaps, some such persons would fan up the

communal frenzy by their utterances in the minds of the ignorant poor people who in a deranged fury rush into the streets prowling for prey. It was an unfortunate plight of people who are ignorant about the real sublime thoughts of religions that they threw themselves into the cauldron of communal delirium which was burning up to boiling point. That was a time when the minds of the rioters turned demented and no sensible thoughts would enter into them. The leaders and the society have not played their part to teach them that religions are not meant for killing fellow human beings. If ignorance had prompted people to take up cudgels in the name of religion for indulging in carnage or murders they are no doubt liable to be convicted and sentenced for the offence committed by them. But we have great difficulty to treat such a case as rarest of the rare cases in which the alternative sentence of life imprisonment can unquestionably be foreclosed.

Thus, we alter the sentence passed on Nasim @ Naso for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 !PC and impose the next alternative (imprisonment for life) for the said offence. Subject to this modification of the sentence we dismiss both these appeals.

B.S.

Appeals dismissed.