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JUDGMENT:

V.S. SIRPURKAR, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. Appellant herein one Praveen, son of Ramchander Sharma was convicted by the Additional Sessions Judge for committing the offences under Section 395 read with Sections 397 and 450 of the Indian Penal Code (for short IPC). Besides these offences, he was also found guilty for committing offence under Sections 25(1-B)(a) and Section 27 of the Arms Act. Along with the present appellant one other accused Harish was also convicted and sentenced for committing the same offences. Both of them filed separate appeals before the High Court. However, both the appeals were dismissed by a common judgment passed by the High Court. While Pravin, the present appellant (original Accused No.1) has come up before us by way of the present appeal, the other accused has not chosen to challenge his conviction. We, therefore, are left with the case of Accused No.1 alone. A few facts would be necessary.

3. A broad day-light dacoity took place on 8.9.2003 on Dena Bank situated at Bapat Chauraha, Indore. According to the complaint lodged by Ashok Kumar Dubey (PW-1), Branch Manager, Dena Bank, at about 12.20 in the noon, two unknown persons had entered in his cabin and one of them took out revolver from his shirt and pointed towards him, pushed him out of the cabin and took him to the hall. The other associates of the said persons, who were present there, asked the other members of the staff and about 30-40 customers to stand in the hall with their hands raised upwards by pointing pistol towards them. One of the associates stood at the gate of the bank with pistol while other associates covered the other persons in the hall. The fifth associate, who appeared to be their leader, had come inside the bank and asked for the keys of the strong room. He took one Mahender Chauhan towards safe by pointing pistol at him while the other persons were asked to sit on the floor of the hall. After about 10- 15 minutes, two accused persons had come out with the bags filled with notes from the safe. They had snatched one bag from Sh.S.M. Dholey, staff member of the bank and stuffed it with the bundles of notes from cash counter. The accused then directed all the persons present there to move to the gallery of toilet and shut them in a room. They threatened that if anyone used phone, then they would shoot such person. Before that they had collected the mobile phones of all the customers which they threw outside the bank. The mobile phones of two of the customers were, however, not found. The accused persons put lock on the gate of the bank and ran away. One customer, namely, Ashish Goyal broke the window panes towards the road and attracted the attention of the people. He only had given information to the Police Control Room on Telephone No.100. The total amount looted was about Rs.13,95,720/-.

4. After committing the dacoity, the accused persons ran away towards Meghdoot Garden in a Commander Jeep of grey or light blue colour and one Hero Honda Motorcycle. The black bag of Shri S.M. Dholey, which was taken away by the dacoits was also described to be made of parachute cloth containing three bank cheques of Rs.10,000/- each of Tehsildar Nazul, photocopy of valuation report of Plot of Siddhipuram, auction forms of Tehsildar Nazul, statement of 2003 of Navlakha Branch Bank, driving licence of Shri Dholey and 10-11 ball pens. There were number of persons who saw this incident, namely, Surendra Kumar, Mahendra Chauhan, Ajay Tandon, S.M. Dholey, Deepak, M.L. Manharey, Sangeeta Silawat of bank staff and Ashish Goyal, Prahlad Gotwal, Ujjwal, Rahul, Sushil Verma, Hargovind Singh, etc., who were the visitors to the bank. All of them claimed that they would be able to identify the dacoits. The descriptions of the accused persons were also given. The person who had entered the cabin of the Branch Manager and pushed him was about 25-30 years, height about 5 feet 6 inches. He had wheatish colour complexion and had unshaven face with small