JUDGMENT : 1. Surjan Singh, Jhandu Singh, Thakuri Singh, Lakhpat Singh, Kallu and Bobu Singh, appeal against their conviction of an offence of dacoity under S. 395, I.P.C., and the sentences passed upon them. In their petitions of appeal they all assert that the police have got up a false case against them, and one or two of them allege enmity against the village headman or village watchman. As a matter of fact Jhandu Singh and Kallu pleaded guilty in the Court of Session and have been formally, convicted on their own plea of guilty. 2. The learned Sessions Judge has committed an irregularity of procedure, in that he went on with the trial and did not record the conviction of Jhandu Singh and Kallu until after he had taken the whole of the evidence and was passing judgment in respect of all the accused persons together. He had a discretion either to accept or not to accept the plea of guilty entered by Jhandu Singh and Kallu. If he desired to hear the whole of the evidence in the case, in order to satisfy himself that these men as well as the other accused persons were really guilty, or in order to enable him to form a satisfactory opinion as to the gravity of the offence committed and the nature of the sentences required, he was perfectly entitled to refuse to act upon the plea of guilty and to proceed with the trial as against all the accused parsons. 3. If, however, his intention, was to accept the plea of guilty entered by Jhandu Singh and Kallu, he should have convicted them at once, and whether or not he deferred sentence until after he had heard the evidence, he should have proceeded with the trial as against the remaining four accused parsons only. If the learned Sessions Judge had taken into account the confessions made by Jhandu Singh and Kallu as against the remaining appellants, I should have felt it necessary to order a new trial so far as those four appellants are concerned; but I see that the Sessions Judge, although his procedure was somewhat irregular, has been careful not to refer to the confessions of Jhandu Singh and Kallu as implicating any of their co-accused. I have examined the evidence against each of the appellants, which has been carefully summed up by the learned Sessions Judge, and I have no doubt that he was right in convicting all of them. I dismiss their appeal.