Mukesh Kumar Yadav v. State (UT of A&N): the appellate court that convicts must hear on sentence

The case before K.V. Viswanathan and Vijay Bishnoi JJ. arose from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The accused had faced trial under Sections 376, 312 and 417 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. In April 2024, the Sessions Court acquitted him. The State and the complainant appealed to the Calcutta High Court, which has territorial jurisdiction over the Union Territory. The High Court reversed the acquittal and convicted the accused. Having done so, it remitted the matter to the Sessions Court for "imposition of sentence." The convict appealed to the Supreme Court.

On 26 May 2026, the Bench partly allowed the appeal. The judgment is reported as 2026 INSC 559. What the Court did was set aside the remit — without disturbing the conviction — and direct that the matter return to the High Court for the sentencing exercise. The point of statutory construction it articulated is the most consequential part.

The statutory anchor: Section 386(a) CrPC

The judgment turns on a single provision. Section 386 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, sets out the powers of the appellate court in disposing of an appeal. Clause (a) addresses the specific situation of an appeal from acquittal:

386. Powers of the Appellate Court.— After perusing such record and hearing the appellant or his pleader, if he appears, and the Public Prosecutor, if he appears, and in case of an appeal under section 377 or section 378, the accused, if he appears, the Appellate Court may, if it considers that there is no sufficient ground for interfering, dismiss the appeal, or may— (a) in an appeal from an order of acquittal, reverse such order and direct that further inquiry be made, or that the accused be re-tried or committed for trial, as the case may be, or find him guilty and pass sentence on him according to law[.]

The italicised text is the operative limb. The Bench's reading was that the words "and pass sentence on him according to law" are not permissive of remit. They direct the appellate court to itself complete the sentencing exercise. The statute does not contemplate a fragmented disposal in which the conviction is entered by the appellate court but the sentence is imposed by the trial court.

The holding

Why the appellate court can't just send it back

The reasoning, in three parts.

The statute's text

The first thread is textual. Section 386(a) confers two distinct categories of disposal on the appellate court in an acquittal appeal. The first category is remitting for further inquiry, retrial or committal — a structurally complete remit that returns the matter to the trial court for substantive re-engagement. The second category — "find him guilty and pass sentence on him according to law" — is a single composite power. The conjunction "and" between conviction and sentence is the textual indication that the appellate court that exercises this power must do both.

A remit for sentencing alone, the Bench observed, is not in the statute. The appellate court that wishes to substitute its own assessment for the trial court's acquittal must complete the assessment — conviction and sentence together — or remit the matter for substantive retrial. There is no intermediate route.

The sentencing hearing's content

The second thread is procedural. The requirement to hear the convict on sentence — the Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab principle, formalised in Section 235(2) CrPC for trial courts and now extended through Section 386(a) to appellate courts that convict — is not a formality. It requires:

• An opportunity for the convict to address the court on aggravating and mitigating circumstances;
• A meaningful engagement with material on the convict's background, the circumstances of the offence, and any other factor going to the sentencing exercise;
• A reasoned decision on the appropriate sentence within the statutory range.

That hearing cannot be split between two courts. The court that is sentencing must be the court that has heard the submissions on sentence. Where the appellate court enters the conviction but the trial court is asked to impose the sentence, neither court has performed the Bachan Singh hearing as the doctrine requires.

The institutional concern

The third thread, less visible in the judgment but implicit in the disposition, is institutional. A remit for sentencing alone places the trial court in an awkward position. It has already acquitted the accused; it has now been told, by the appellate court, that its acquittal was wrong. The sentencing it is then required to impose is on a conviction in which it played no part. The discharge of the Bachan Singh duty in that posture is structurally compromised. The Bench's reading of Section 386(a) avoids that institutional difficulty.

What survives the disposition

The Bench's disposition is calibrated. The conviction entered by the High Court is not disturbed. The High Court's reversal of the acquittal, on the merits of the appeal, was within its appellate jurisdiction and survives the Supreme Court's intervention. What is set aside is the remit for sentencing — and the matter is sent back to the High Court so that the sentencing exercise can be completed by the court that entered the conviction.

For the convict, that means the constitutional protection against being sentenced by a court that has not heard him on sentence is preserved; the conviction stands; the sentencing hearing now happens at the High Court rather than the trial court.

Application under the BNSS

The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, replaced the CrPC on 1 July 2024. The successor provision to Section 386 CrPC is §Section 427 BNSS, with the same architecture. Clause (a) carries over the appellate court's power on appeals from acquittal in materially identical terms: the appellate court may "find him guilty and pass sentence on him according to law."

The pre-conviction sentencing hearing — Section 235(2) CrPC — is now §Section 258(2) BNSS. The Bachan Singh doctrine, anchored in the constitutional fairness requirement of Article 21 read with these procedural sections, applies to BNSS proceedings without modification.

For practitioners, the practical position is unchanged by the change in code. Appeals from acquittal heard under the BNSS in which the appellate court reverses the acquittal and convicts must be followed by the appellate court hearing the convict on sentence. A remit for sentencing alone, under BNSS Section 427(a), is not the law.

Three lines of practical implication

For the criminal-side bar. Appellate practice in acquittal appeals now has a sharper procedural rule. When defending against a reversed acquittal, the bar should be prepared to make the Bachan Singh submission at the appellate court immediately on conviction being indicated — not at a subsequent trial court remand. When prosecuting an acquittal appeal, the State must be ready with sentencing-stage material at the appellate hearing itself; deferring it to a trial court remit is no longer available.

For the High Court bench. Acquittal appeals require structured sentencing-hearing arrangements at the High Court level. The bench convicting on appeal must hold a substantive sentencing hearing — preferably on a separate date, with the convict produced or appearing through counsel — and pass the sentence within the appellate proceedings.

For appellate practice in general. The principle the judgment articulates — that conviction and sentence are a composite disposal, not severable between fora — has implications beyond Section 386(a). Where appellate courts under other statutes (e.g., special courts under PMLA, NDPS) reverse acquittals and convict, the same doctrinal architecture is likely to apply, by analogy. The Bachan Singh / Mukesh Kumar Yadav line should be in the brief for any first-conviction appellate sentencing.

A note on remand for retrial vs remit for sentence

The judgment is precise about the distinction. Section 386(a) permits remit for retrial (substantive re-engagement by the trial court) but does not permit remit for sentence alone. The bar should not collapse the two categories. Where the appellate court is genuinely of the view that the substantive evaluation by the trial court was flawed and that retrial is appropriate, Section 386(a) permits that remit; where the appellate court is satisfied that conviction is warranted on the existing record, the sentencing exercise must follow at the appellate court.

The bottom line

Mukesh Kumar Yadav is a short judgment with a clean doctrinal point. Section 386(a) CrPC — now BNSS Section 427(a) — permits the appellate court that convicts to either remit for full retrial or to pass sentence itself. There is no third option. The composite nature of conviction-and-sentence as a single disposal — rooted in Bachan Singh and in the constitutional fairness requirement of Article 21 — does not permit the sentencing exercise to be hived off to a court that did not enter the conviction. For appellate criminal practice across the country, the operative rule from 26 May 2026 is: the court that convicts must sentence.

Verify against the reported judgment. The Bachan Singh line on the requirements of the sentencing hearing supplies the doctrinal background; the Mukesh Kumar Yadav judgment is the proximate authority on the appellate-court application of the principle.