Hon’ble Vinod Prasad, J.—Jai Pal Singh, solitary accused was convicted by Session’s Judge, Ghaziabad in S.T. No. 183 of 1978, State v. Shahid and others, P.S. Bahadurgarh, district Ghaziabad for offence under Section 396 I.P.C. and was implanted sentence of 9 years RI, while two other accused were acquitted of the said charge, and hence he has come up to this Court, in this appeal challenging his aforesaid conviction and sentence.

2. A resume of back ground facts, stated concisely, shows that on the intervening night between 9/10th September 1977, at 1 a.m., nine or ten dacoits trespassed into Dharam Singh’s (informant, PW1) house from the front door and pounced the informant on the same cot on which he was sleeping, in his verandah, alongwith his DBBL Gun No. 2492. When informant tried to pick up his gun, it was snatched away by the dacoits. At that time Saraswati, informant’s wife, his son Suresh, daughter Sureshbani, and small children were sleeping in southern verandah. Four of the dacoits were armed with country made pistols while rest of them were armed with spear and lathi. Informant raised hue and cry, which woke up his wife Smt. Saraswati (deceased), who also raise