Hear appellant before dismissing criminal appeal: SC

New Delhi, June 18 (UNI) The Supreme Court has ruled that summary dismissal of a criminal appeal without hearing the appellant is not proper.

The trial court had convicted Kalu Ram and Roop Chand and sentenced them to seven years' rigorous imprisonment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder(section304 part-I IPC).

The informant Ranjit Singh filed a revision petition challenging the trial court order on the grounds that it was a case of murder punishable under section 302 IPC.

The convicts challenged their conviction and sentence by way of criminal appeal.

The Delhi high court heard the revision petition first and dismissed the same as without merit.

The high court also dismissed the criminal appeal filed by the convicts on the grounds that since revision petition has been dismissed the present appeal also stood dismissed as the same is also without merits.

A bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and Altamas Kabir vide judgment dated June 15 set aside the high court order and remanded the case back to the high court for fresh hearing with a request to dispose of the appeal expeditiously.

Accepting the contention of the counsel for the appellants that summary disposal of the appeal is not proper as no opportunity was granted to the appellants to substantiate their challenge to the legality of the judgment of the trial court, the bench observed,"We find that the contentions of the ld. counsel for the appellants to be correct. The case of the appellants was not independently examined. Merely because the revision petition filed by the informant was dismissed that could not have been a ground for not discussing the merits of the appeal filed by the appellants.

A criminal revision petition may have been without merit; but that did not make the appeal filed by the appellants meritless." UNI AKS/SC RP GC0948