Appellate Court Reversing Acquittal Must Itself Hear Convict On Sentence, Cannot Remand To Trial Court For Sentence Alone : Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (May 26) held that if an Appellate Court, while hearing an appeal against an acquittal,  finds the accused guilty, then it cannot relegate the matter to the trial court for imposing the sentence. The Appellate Court itself has to hear the convict on sentence.

“It can be seen from Section 386(a), Cr.P.C., that where in an appeal from an order of acquittal, the court hearing the appeal finds the accused guilty it is required to pass a sentence on him according to law.”, observed a bench of Justice KV Viswanathan and Justice Vijay Bishnoi, while setting aside the Calcutta High Court's Port Blair Circuit Bench decision to relegate the matter to the trial court for the purposes of imposing the sentence on the accused, after overturning his acquittal.

The Court said that “if it is the appellate court which is convicting the accused for the first time after reversing the acquittal, the appellate court has to hear the convict on sentence. The appellate court cannot relegate the matter to the court below only for the purpose of imposing a sentence after the appellate court had recorded a conviction. That will be contrary to Section 386(a), Cr.P.C., and the judgments of this Court.”

In this case, the Appellant stood trial before the trial court in Andaman and Nicobar Islands for offences punishable under Sections 376, 312 and 417 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for short the “IPC”). By the judgment, the trial court acquitted the appellant of all the offences charged, following which an appeal against the acquittal was preferred before the High Court at Port Blair.

By way of an impugned order, the High Court directed the appellant to surrender before the Trial Judge and further directed that on his surrender, the Trial Judge shall take him into custody and shall pronounce and impose the proper sentence under Sections 376/312 IPC, after hearing on the point of sentence in accordance with law.

Aggrieved by the High Court's order, the accused moved to the Supreme Court.

Setting aside the impugned order, the judgment authored by Justice Viswanathan stated that the High Court committed an error in relegating the matter for the trial court's consideration for the purposes of imposing a sentence. [See Kumar Exports Vs. Sharma Carpets, (2009) 2 SCC 513]

“Not only should the appellate court not remand the matter to the trial court only for the purpose of imposing a sentence, after it finds accused guilty, it has a bounden duty to hear and impose an appropriate sentence.”, the court observed.

Accordingly, the appeal was partly allowed, and the High Court was directed to fix a date for hearing the convict on the issue of sentence.

Cause Title: Mukesh Kumar Yadav Versus The State (UT of Andaman & Nicobar Islands) Etc.

Citation : 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 546

Click here to download judgment

Appearance:

For Petitioner(s) : Mr. Rauf Rahim, Sr. Adv. Mr. Mohammed Tabraiz, Adv. Mr. Ali Asghar Rahim, Adv. Mr. Mohsin Rahim, Adv. Mrs. Tania Tamanna, Adv. Mr. Shekhar Kumar, AOR

For Respondent(s)-Victim : Mr. Kunal Chatterji, AOR Ms. Maitrayee Banerjee, Adv. Mr. Ajith Prasad, Adv. Mr. Rohit Bansal, Adv. Mr. Varij Nayan Mishra, Adv.

For Respondent-State : Mr. Mukesh K Verma, Adv. Mr. Shreekant Neelappa Terdal, AOR