The court trying the T.P. Chandrasekharan murder case has deferred the sentencing of the 12 guilty men to Tuesday next.

The special additional sessions court, which convicted the 12 men for the murder on Wednesday, was to have pronounced the sentence on Thursday. But the judge, who heard all of them and heard the prosecution which pleaded for the maximum penalty of death, deferred the sentencing.

The court, while convicting the 12, including three CPI (M) local leaders, had acquitted 24 other accused. T.P. Chandrasekharan, leader of the Revolutionary Marxist Party, was murdered in May, 2012, by a gang of seven paid killers at the instruction of his political rivals. Meanwhile, the principal sessions judge at Kollam has found Biju Radhakrishnan, the main accused in the infamous `solar equipment fraud case,’ guilty of murdering his first wife Rashmi. His mother Rajammal also was convicted on Thursday for her role in the murder of Rashmi in 2006.

Rashmi was strangled at Biju Radhakrishnan’s home after she was forced to take alcohol. The murder came to light during the investigation into the alleged duping of dozens of customers of solar equipment by the company owned by Biju Radhakrishnan and Sarita Nair.

The court will hand down the sentence for the mother-son duo for the murder on Saturday.