Stuart, J.:— This is an appeal by 26 persons against convictions and sentences by the learned Sessions Judge of Gorakhpur. The facts are as follows:—On the 4th of March 1920 two Inspectors in the Excise Department in Gorakhpur, Babu Baleshwar Prasad and Babu Murli Dhar, went out on ekkas to search certain houses in a village a few miles from Gorakhpur, having received information that illicit liquor was being distilled. Four excise peons followed them on foot; after an interval there came on foot another excise peon and four constables. The party collected at a village called Gularia at about 2 p.m Thence they went to the village Khutahan where the search was to be made. They reached Khutahan about 3 p.m In Khutahan they searched the houses of Sarju Kewab, Bisheshar Kewat, Mahabir Kewat, Manohar Kewat, Musammat Sonkali Kewat and Jagarnath Kewat. As far as I have been able to ascertain Khutahan is a village in a forest tract or ex forest tract in which the cultivators are almost entirely Kewats. Kewat cultivators in such a village have a low standard of intelligence, and are usually ignorant and excitable people. The day on which the search was made was shortly before the Holi festival, Kewats are a drinking caste and would ordinarily consider the Holi festival not properly performed if the festivities did not include drinking alcohol. The search resulted in the discovery of something under six bottles of illicit liquor and a few of the rough utensils that are used by villagers for the distillation of illicit liquor. It would seam obvious from the fact that very little liquor was found and that the implements for distilling were most primitive, that the villagers were distilling illicit liquor not to sell it but to drink it themselves, probably at the Holi. All the articles discovered were put in charge of Murli Dhar Inspector. Jagarnath, Manohar and Musammat Sonkali were apprehended, Baleshwar Prasad obtained a cart. The articles captured were placed on the cart. The party consisting of two inspectors, 5 chaprasis and 4 constables were on the point of leaving Khutahan with their three prisoners and the cart, between 6 p.m and 7 p.m, when a fire broke out in the cattle-shed of Jagarnath, the man who had been arrested. The villagers collected. Murli Dhar and some of his party assisted the villagers in putting out the fire. The fire was not serious; it did not spread and was soon extinguished. By this time over 200 villagers had collected on the spot. The fire having been extinguished, the party moved on with their prisoners and the cart. They had not gone 50 yards when a woman, who has not been identified, called out “Is this village without a zemindar that these persons rob the village and set fire to it? Villagers then collected from all aides and attacked the excise inspectors and their party. With the exception of the excise inspectors every one else ran away. The prisoners were left by themselves and subsequently made good their escape. The two inspectors were rather severely handled. According to the medical evidence they each received grievous hurt but their injuries were not of a dangerous nature. They were soundly thrashed with lathis and underwent a most unpleasant experience, but their lives were never in any danger, and on the whole, they were fortunate in getting off as lightly as they did, considering the fact that they were amongst a crowd of ignorant and excited villagers who were suffering from what appeared to them to be a real grievance though it was not a grievance which the law can recognize.

2. It seems to ma palpable that the villagers were intensely alarmed at the arrest of Musammat Sonkali. They were undoubtedly extremely annoyed at the raid. They had not lost much in the way of illicit liquor, only some six bottles, but they were probably apprehensive that further searches would be made in the village. It is extremely probable that there were more illicit stills than the stills which the excise officers had discovered. The main causes for the violent action of the villagers were, however, almost certainly the arrest of the woman and the arrest of the two men. The excise officers undoubtedly had the right to make a search and the right to arrest these persons, but whether they showed discretion in their action is another question. In the course of the attack, Baleshwar Prasad says, he was robbed of a gold ring. After attacking the 2 excise inspectors the villagers took them prisoners. Behari Singh zemindar of the adjoining village of Phulwatia came up and remonstrated with the crowd. By this time the five excise peons and the four constables had come back. Some of them had received some injuries in the fight. The crowd took the two inspectors to the zemindar's chhaoni in Khutahan saying that they were dacoits. Neither the zemindar nor any of his servants were there. Behari Singh besought the crowd to let the excise officers go, saying, that he would stand security for their appearance. The inspectors were then released and went back from the chhaoni with the peons and constables to Phulwaria and thence to Gorakhpur which they reached at 2 a.m

3. The fight had taken place in bright moon light, 35 persons were committed for trial on charges under sections 395 and 332, I.P.C The learned Sessions Judge on receiving the case proceeded to increase and amplify these charges in the end he had framed nine charges in all as is shown by the charge-sheets. From his judgment he had framed ten. The tenth charge was under section 392 against Birbal for taking Inspector Baleshwar Prasad's gold ring. I have been unable to find this charge. The learned Sessions Judge arrived at no finding upon it. In the end be convicted twenty-eight persons, who are the persons now appealing before me. Leaving out persons who were acquitted, I shall consider the charges-brought against the 28 appellants. All were charged under section 395, I.P.C The most impressive charge was thus one of dacoity. The learned Counsel for the appellants does not question the propriety of this charge on the facts. The dacoity was however of the most technical character. The charge amounts to this:—The villagers wanted to get the illicit liquor and the other articles captured back. They formed in force to effect this purpose. The recovery of the articles being a technical theft and, violence having been used, a technical robbery arose, committed by more than five persons, hence there was a charge of dacoity. The charge of dacoity in itself is a good charge. I think it necessary however to emphasize the fact that the dacoity was absolutely technical. I wish to safeguard those appellants whose convictions have been upheld from entries in the badmashi register as ex-dacoits. They are not ex-dacoits in the ordinary sense of the word. At the present moment there are a large number of real dacoities being committed in this Province, and it is most desirable that real dacoits should be distinguished from technical dacoits in the minds of the police authorities. The next two charges which were framed against all these persons were under sections 333 and 332, I.P.C There followed a charge under section 225 against all the accused, with the exception of Jagarnath, Manohar and Musammat Sonkalia, of having rescued those three persons and a charge under section 224 against those three persons for having escaped from lawful custody. There then followed a charge under section 342 against 18 of the accused for having illegally confined the excise inspectors, and against the remainder under section 342/149 for being responsible for the said illegal confinement. Against four of the accused there was a further charge under section 436/193 of having set fire to the cowshed with the intention of fabricating false evidence against the excise inspectors and their party.

4. I wish to do full justice to the trouble which the learned Sessions Judge has expended in trying the case and the great care with which he has treated every detail, but I do not consider that any useful purpose was served by this multiplication of charges. To all intents and purposes the case against these accused persons was a very simple one. They had attacked the excise party and beaten them severely. That was the main charge and the only important charge. Everything else was immaterial. The learned Sessions Judge recognised this fact when he directed all the sentences to run concurrently. When the sentences are examined it will be seen that with one exception every person has been convicted under section 333 and that the heaviest sentences have been passed under that section. All the other sentences run concurrently except in the case of the person who was not convicted under that section. Apart from the provisions of the present Code of Criminal Procedure on the subject of joinder of charges and joint trial of persons there are general principles of universal application with regard to trials. These principles were well laid down by a Bench of the Bombay High Court in Queen Empress v. Fakirappa (1). The headnote indicates them sufficiently. It is as follows:—

“If, in any case, either the accused are likely to be bewildered in their defence by having to meet many disconnected charges, or the prospect of a fair trial is likely to be endangered by the production of a mass of evidence directed to many different matters and tending by its mere accumulation to induce an undue suspicion against the accused, then the propriety of combining the charges may well be questioned.”

5. This decision was under the old Code. The principles however are equally good under any Code. I do not go so far as to say that in the present case the accused were actually bewildered in their defence by having to meet many disconnected charges, or that a fair trial was not obtained, but I think that the learned Sessions Judge incurred a distinct danger of spoiling the prospects of a fair trial owing to his desire that every single aspect of the case should be brought out in the charge-sheet, and I recommend him in future not to take a similar risk. Nothing could be gained by the procedure and a very grant deal could have been lost by it. The learned Counsel for the appellants has attacked the trial as illegal. His case is that neither under the provisions of section 234 or 235 or 239 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is the trial justified. In order to decide this plea, it is necessary for me to recapitulate the facts which form the basis of the charges against the accused persons. The allegations of the prosecution as accepted by the Committing Magistrate were as follows:—It was stated that certain excise officers having made a seizure of articles which it was alleged were being used for the purpose of illicit distillation, and apprehended certain persona as being in possession of those articles, were taking the articles and escorting these persons from the village where the articles had been found to the headquarters of the Excise Department. It was alleged that while they were so doing a large number of adherents of the apprehended parsons collected and that the following events followed:—

(1) A cowshed was set on fire. The suggestion here was that the excise officers might be charged with having committed mischief by fire.

(2) The excise officers were beaten severely and otherwise maltreated.

(3) The articles seized were recovered.

(4) The prisoners were rescued.

(5) Some of the excise officers were wrongfully confined.

6. These were the allegations of the prosecution which were accepted as being established prima facie on the order of the Committing Magistrate, and these allegations formed the basis of the charges. It appears that the trial will be justified upon the charges as framed by the learned Sessions Judge if the events which I have already enumerated formed one transaction. If these events do not form one transaction the trial is had in law and the proceedings must be set aside. The rule as contained in section 233 is that for every distinct offence of which a person is accused there shall be a separate charge and every such charge shall be tried separately. But this rule is subject to the exceptions provided specifically in sections 234, 235, 236 and 239. Section 234 has no application here. This is not a case of offences of the same kind. If it had application the trial would be clearly bad, because more than three offences have been charged together. The question arises whether section 235 read with section 239 justifies the action taken. Section 236 has no application. If in a series of acts so connected together as to form the same transaction, more offences than one are committed by the same person, he may be charged with and tried at one trial for every such offence under section 235, and when more persons than one are accused of the same offence or of different offences committed in the same transaction they may be charged together under the provisions of section 239. The learned Counsel for the appellants urges that in no circumstances can more than three offences be combined even if more than three offences have been committed in the same transaction. He has been unable to find any decision in support of his argument. There is one decision directly against it. That decision is contained in a reported judgment of a Bench of the Calcutta High Court, Emperor v. Sri Narain Prasad (2). There four offences were combined in one trial. It should, however, be pointed out that the point taken by the learned Counsel for the appellants does not seem to have been considered by that Bench, and in view of that circumstance I do not consider that the decision in question affords much assistance in deciding this matter. The main point against the learned Counsel's argument is that there is nothing in the words of section 235 or 239 to support the limitation which he advances. It is true that in the Illustrations to the sections no more than three offences are ever specifically mentioned. In the Illustration to section 235(d) however the number of offences is not stated and could be more than three. But, in any circumstance, I find that the plea (which is an ingenious plea,) cannot be supported. If it were advanced, for example in a case of gang murder in which four people had been murdered, it would on the face of it appear to be without weight. I find against it. This carries me back to the main point. Do the events which I have already described form part of one transaction? There has been no attempt in the Code to define the meaning of the word ‘transaction’ and it would be almost impossible to frame a satisfactory definition. In a certain decision of the Bombay High Court some very valuable remarks were made as to the rules which should guide a Court in deciding whether a particular series of events do or do not form one transaction. This decision is in Emperor v. Sherufalli Allibhoy (3). At page 138 Chandavarkar, J., says:—“The real and substantial test, then, for determining whether several offences are connected together so as to form the same transaction depends upon whether they are so related to one another in point of purpose, or as cause and effect, or as principal and subsidiary acts, as to constitute one continuous action. A mere interval of time between the commission of one offence and another does not by itself necessarily import want of continuity, though “the length of the interval may be an important element in determining the question of connection between the two.”

7. I proceed to apply these principles to the facts as alleged by the prosecution. There can be no objection with regard to the interval of time, for here one event followed directly after another, and the period from the first event to the last was less than five hours. There was a common purpose running through all the offences. The villagers were actuated by a desire to save their friends, intimidate and punish the excise officials, and to cover up their own tracks. Keeping this common purpose in mind it will be seen that each Act followed the Act preceding it, as a consequence. To intimidate the excise officers a cowshed was set on fire. This Act was likely to cause apprehensions of a false charge and if the apprehensions were sufficiently strong the excise officers might go away, leave the cart and leave the prisoners, and cease to take further action against the village. They did not do so. Then they were attacked. Finally they were takers into custody. In order to establish a transaction it is necessary to have a chain. Each event must be a link in the chain. There must be no rupture in the sequence. There must be no hiatus. But here each event is a link connected with the preceding event. There is only one chain, there is no rupture and there is no hiatus. I therefore hold that all these events formed one transaction and that in these circumstances the trial is good.

8. His Lordship then dealt with the evidence as regards each of the appellants and acquitted some and reduced the sentences of others.

9. Order modified.