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It is well settled that Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code does not create a distinct offence: it only lays down the principle of joint criminal liability. The necessary conditions for the application of Section 34 of the Code are common intention to commit an offence and participation by all the accused in doing act or acts in furtherance of that common intention. If these two ingredients are established, all the accused would be liable for the said offence; that is to say, if two or more persons had common intention to commit murder and they had participated in the acts done by them in furtherance of that common intention, all of them would be guilty of murder. In that situation Section 96 of the Code says that nothing is an offence which is done in the exercise of the right of private defence. Though all the accused were liable for committing the murder of a person by doing an act or acts in furtherance of the common intention, they would not be liable for the said act or acts done in furtherance of common intention, if they had the right of private defence to voluntarily cause death of that person. Common intention, therefore, has relevance only to the offence and not to the right of private defence. What would be an offence by reason of constructive liability would cease to be one if the act constituting the offence was done in exercise of the right of private defence. To illustrate, if a person was guilty of murder by doing an act in furtherance of a common intention with others to commit murder, he could sustain the plea of the right of private defence only by establishing that he had the right to cause death of that person. It is true that, in ascertaining whether a group of persons had common intention to murder, the evidence adduced by the defence that they had common intention only to cause hurt is relevant. But once it is established that the common intention was to commit murder, the question of separate individual liability in the context of private defence would be out of place. Under Section 103 of the Indian Penal Code, the right of private defence of property extends, under the restrictions mentioned in Section 99 thereof, to the voluntary causing of death, if the offence, the committing of which or attempting to commit which occasions the exercise of the right falls in one of the categories mentioned therein. That is to say, if it was not one of the offences enumerated therein, the person had no right of private defence extending to the voluntary causing of death. If in the instant case the accused were not able to establish that the offence fell in one of the categories enumerated therein, they would be liable for murder, as all of them participated in the offence pursuant to the common intention to commit murder. In most of the cases, the discussion of the evidence in compartments -- one relating to the offence and the other to the right of private defence --may not be possible, for almost always the evidence relating to one part will have impact on the other part, and the court in considering whether the accused are liable constructively for murder will have to consider also the evidence of the defence that their common intention was not to commit murder but only to protect their right and to cause hurt, if necessary,

12. The Sub-Inspector recovered blood from inside the field and the dead bodies were also found lying inside it. Even the photographer was shot dead. The High Court relying upon the aforesaid evidence and the circumstances held that the appellants, with the common intention of committing murder, made all the preparations, entered the field and shot at the deceased from a close range without any resistance being offered by the deceased. Mr. Sethi, learned counsel for the appellants after taking us through the details of the plan of the suit field, argued that the line of cutting operation of crops was quite removed from the place where the dead bodies were found and that if the accused had come determined to kill the deceased, they would have fired at the sight of the victims and from some distance and in that case the bodies would have been found near the point where cutting was going on. This argument is only based on probabilities and on certain premises. There is no clear evidence where exactly the three victims were at the time the accused came to the field. We cannot presume that they were at a particular place and rushed at the accused, for that fact is contrary to the entire evidence in the case. The situation of the dead bodies, the fact that gunshots were fired from a close range and the fact that none of the accused was injured, are more consistent with the clear evidence adduced in the case than with the hypothesis suggested by the learned counsel. We, therefore, see no justification to interfere with the finding arrived at by the High Court that the appellants, with common intention to kill the deceased, armed themselves with guns and spears and attacked the deceased from a close range immediately after coming to the field and killed them in the manner the prosecution witnesses deposed. They were certainly guilty under Section 302, read with Section 34, of the Indian Penal Code.