JUDGMENT Chunder, J. - These are two appeals by one Rahamatulla Khan. It appears that a postal clerk of the name of Dhiren was going with a bag of money belonging to the post office, when he is said to have met on the way the accused, who demanded the bag of money with the help of a revolver. The revolver appears to have been loaded with seven cartridges. Dhiren had a scuffle with him when he wanted to snatch away the money and Dhiren also wanted to snatch away the revolver from the accused. During the scuffle the accused gave a blow with a stick to the hand of Dhiren so that the accused could get away with the revolver but not the bag of money. This is the subject-matter of appeal No. 168. The Appellant has been convicted by the Additional Sessions Judge, First Extra Court, 24-Pargands, u/s 394 of the Indian Penal Code, the jury returning a unanimous verdict. It is not clear to us what led the Sessions Judge to ask the jury for "a little" explanation. The accused had been charged under two Sections 394 and 398 of the Indian Penal Code and when the jury returned a verdict under one section only it meant that they acquitted him of the other section. It is not for a judge to question the verdict of the jury and ask them to explain "a little". The explanation given by the jury was "We have doubt about his possession of the revolver as also "about the working condition of the revolver and so we have "given our verdict like that." This will be a quite a reasonable ground for acquittal u/s 398 of the Indian Penal Code. 2. Mr. Roy, appearing on behalf of the Appellant, has contended before us that in this view of the jury the conviction should not have been u/s 394 of the Indian Penal Code. Even if the jury in this case did not consider the presence of a revolver in the hand of the accused as free from doubt, as in order to commit theft hurt was caused with the help of the stick, there can be no question that the jury could rightly return a verdict u/s 394 of the Indian Penal Code. Therefore, there is no inconsistency in the verdict. Therefore, there is no inconsistency in the verdict. The only objectionable thing is the Sessions Judge's interference with the jury after it had returned its verdict. It appears that when fleeing away the Appellant discharged two rounds of ammunition by firing two cartridges from the revolver at pursuers. For this he was separately charged and separately tried in another trial with another jury and he was acquitted in that case. That case is not before us. It further happened that when the accused was trying to escape one Durga Goala tried to seize him as a result of which the accused fired five times at him with the revolver but fortunately for Durga the cartridges proved to have been damp and he was saved from meeting an untimely end. Durga with the help of his nephew Bhagaban succeeded in seizing the accused and in making him over to the Additional Superintendent of Police, Mr. P. Mukherji, who came shortly afterwards and the revolver was also made over to the police at the time. For this there was a charge against the accused u/s 307 and u/s 19(a)(f)/19A of the Indian Arms Act. Five jurors were selected to try this case which was again tried as a separate case from the other two. It appears that three of the jurors were selected from amongst the twelve persons who had been summoned to appear. The remaining two 'were selected from amongst those present in court. All these five jurors were then selected by the Additional Sessions Judge as assessors and the trial for the offence u/s 19(a)(f)/19A of the Arms Act was with the aid of assessors. The jurors and the assessors unanimously considered Rahamatulla Khan guilty of the offence u/s 307 of the Penal Code as well as of the offence under the Arms Act. The Judge accepted the verdict of the jury, convicted the accused of the offence u/s 307 of the Indian Penal Code and he further in a judgment agreed with the opinion of the assessors, convicted the accused of the offence charged under the Arms Act and passed sentences of four years' rigorous imprisonment for each of the offences, the sentences to run consecutively. The learned Judge has mentioned in his proceedings that the choosing of the jury was u/s 276 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Mr. The learned Judge has mentioned in his proceedings that the choosing of the jury was u/s 276 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Mr. Roy has frankly conceded that he has no objection to what the learned Judge did as regards the choice of jurors, but the learned Judge obviously did not notice that his choice of assessors in this way was wrong. u/s 284 of the Code of Criminal Procedure the number of assessors should have been not less than three and if possible, four; the number cannot be five. In the Code of Criminal Procedure, previous to the amendment of 1923, there was provision for trial by two or more assessors. That was changed by the amended Code of 1923. Now the number of assessors cannot be less than three and more than four and if possible the Sessions Judge will try to have four assessors. Therefore, the choice of five assessors was not according to law. There may be either 3 or 4 assessors. Then again, the section provides that the assessors should be chosen from amongst those summoned to act as such. In the present case two of the assessors were chosen from persons who were not summoned to act as such but were persons present in court. The learned Judge did not notice the difference between Section 276 and Section 284 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. u/s 276 the number of jurors may be completed from persons present in court, but the number of assessors u/s 284 of the Code of Criminal Procedure cannot be completed from amongst persons present in court. Choice must be from such persons as are actually summoned as assessors. Persons not so summoned cannot act as assessors though they may act as jurors, if properly chosen as such. Therefore, the choice of the two assessors from those present in court but not summoned was again illegal. Therefore, the trial, as far as the offence under the Arms Act is concerned, cannot stand. The conviction and sentence u/s 19(a)(f)/19A of the Indian Arms Act are, therefore, set aside. 3. The next point that has been urged by Mr. Roy in this appeal is the number of trials which were held one after the other in the Judge's Court. Mr. The conviction and sentence u/s 19(a)(f)/19A of the Indian Arms Act are, therefore, set aside. 3. The next point that has been urged by Mr. Roy in this appeal is the number of trials which were held one after the other in the Judge's Court. Mr. Roy rightly contended that public time and money should not have been wasted in this way in trying the accused for offences committed during the course of the same transaction in three different trials with three different sets of jurors or assessors. He has further very rightly pointed out the hardship this procedure has caused to the accused, inasmuch as he had to undergo the trouble and expense of three separate defences in these trials. It is absolutely impossible to understand why the Sessions Judge went on holding so many trials and wasting everybody's time and money. The law allows all offences committed within the course of the same transaction to be tried together. All that is necessary is that for each separate offence there must be a separate charge. But there is nothing to prevent all the charges being tried together at the same trial. Any good text book will explain to the Sessions Judge to his benefit when a transaction is considered to be the same. In the present case, as there was a continuity of purpose throughout there cannot be the faintest shade of a shadow of doubt that the transaction was the same in course of which all these offences were committed. Though the grievance of Mr. Roy is a real one and perfectly justified, yet the three trials that were held cannot be interfered with as all the three trials were perfectly legal and regular. In order to save time and money this discretion of joint trial is given to a Sessions Judge. But the law allows the Sessions Judge to hold separate trials for each individual charge and each individual accused if he so thinks fit. There is, therefore, nothing either illegal or irregular in the procedure adopted by the Sessions Judge, though the procedure was certainly most undesirable. Had the Appellant come up to us in revision before the trial, there can be no doubt that one single trial with joinder of charges would have been directed by this Court. There is, therefore, nothing either illegal or irregular in the procedure adopted by the Sessions Judge, though the procedure was certainly most undesirable. Had the Appellant come up to us in revision before the trial, there can be no doubt that one single trial with joinder of charges would have been directed by this Court. As the procedure did not vitiate the trial or was not irregular the result of the trial cannot be interfered with on that ground. As regards the facts of the case Mr. Roy very rightly did not waste the time of the Court, as the Sessions Judge in an elaborate charge to the jury and in a long judgment has set out what could be said about the facts. 4. The last point urged by Mr. Roy was the question of sentence. The sentence passed u/s 307 of the Indian Penal Code was four years' rigorous imprisonment and under the Arms Act also four years' rigorous imprisonment, the sentences to run consecutively. We do not see any necessity for consecutive sentences. The sentences might profitably have been made concurrent. As far as the nature of the case is concerned, four years' rigorous imprisonment was a proper sentence. It is for this reason that, though we have set aside the conviction and sentence under the Arms Act, we have not directed any retrial. Four years' rigorous imprisonment u/s 307 of the Indian Penal Code in the same trial with regard to the same transaction has in our opinion been sufficient. 5. As regards Appeal No. 168 the sentence has been seven years' rigorous imprisonment and it has been made to run concurrently with that passed in Appeal 164. In our opinion, the sentence of seven years' rigorous imprisonment is too excessive and we, therefore, reduce the sentence u/s 394 of the Indian Penal Code in Appeal 168 to four years' rigorous imprisonment and this sentence is to run concurrently with the sentence in Appeal No. 164. With these modifications the two appeals are otherwise dismissed. Guha J. 6. I agree.