I had issued the ps -ef|grep java command and this is one of the entries that  I got :subhrcho   875   803  0 Jan23 pts/5    00:02:27 [java] <defunct>What is <defunct> implying here ? What state is that process is that process with PID=875 in ?
What does  mean in the output of ps?
process;ps;command;process management
From the ps manpage:Processes marked <defunct> are dead processes (so-called zombies)  that remain because their parent has not destroyed them properly.  These processes will be destroyed by init(8) if the parent process  exits.