Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
P. Sathasivam and Anil R. Dave

JUDGMENT

P. Sathasivam, J.

1. These appeals are directed against the impugned judgment and final order dated 25.10.2007 passed by the High Court of Gujarat at Ahmedabad in Criminal Appeal No. 1422 of 2005 whereby the High Court dismissed the appeal filed by the appellants confirming the order dated 23.08.2004 passed by the trial Court convicting them under Section 302 of the India Penal Code (hereinafter referred to as 'IPC') read with Section 34 IPC and also under Section 135 of the Bombay Police Act awarding each of them to undergo rigorous imprisonment (RI) for life and fine of Rs. 5,000/-, in default, to further undergo RI for one year for the offences under Section 302 read with Section 34 and also awarded RI for one year and fine of Rs. 1,000/-, in default, RI for one month for the offence under Section 135 of the Bombay Police Act.

2. "The case of the prosecution" as unfolded during the course of investigation was:

a) On 16.09.1999, at about 1715 hrs., Prakashbhai Raveshia, (Chairman of Morbi Nagrik Bank, Morbi), the deceased, accompanied with Ashokbhai Laljibhai Kathrani PW 106, Director in the aforesaid Bank came out of the Bank. It is the case of the prosecution that immediately after coming out of the Bank, Rameshbhai Mohanbhai Koli - appellant herein approached the deceased and asked him about the loan facility and the manner in which the loan application form was to be filled. During the course of investigation, it was further revealed that immediately thereafter, Ramesbhai Mohanbhai Koli (A1), appellant No. 1 herein, exhorted the other appellants (A2-A4) to attack the deceased. On such exhortation, A2-A4 attacked the deceased with knives and later on A1 joined them. During the investigation, it was further stated by the witnesses that, after the attack, two of the accused ran away on a motorcycle from the place of occurrence. It is important to mention here that in addition to PW-106, the aforesaid incident was witnessed by as many as 8 witnesses, some of whom were natural witnesses being tea or pan vendor present at the place of occurrence. It was further revealed that original Accused Nos. 5-7 had conspired to eliminate Prakashbhai Raveshia and in furtherance of that conspiracy engaged the services of the appellants herein. During the panchnama (Exh.384) of the place of occurrence amongst other articles, a blood stained loan application form bearing the name and address of the appellant Rameshbhai Mohanbhai Koli (A1) was seized by the police. As regards the injuries on the person of the deceased, the post-mortem report (Exh. 206) revealed that the deceased suffered 18 injuries out of which 17 were incised wounds. It may be mentioned here that large number of injuries/incised wounds were found on the neck and the chest of the deceased.

(b) During the course of further investigation, after arrest of the appellants herein, all of them made separate disclosure statements showing their willingness to disclose the respective places where they had hidden the knives used in the commission of offence. Pursuant to such disclosur........