HARPAL SINGH Vs. HARJINDER KAUR ALIAS RAJINDER KAUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 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-

(2.) THE above quoted provisions of Section 386 of the Code of Criminal Procedure establish without any pale of controversy that before an appeal can be decided by the Appellate Court, the perusal of the record and hearing of the Appellant or his Pleader if he appears is sine-qua-non. This had been considered by the Supreme Court in the well known decision of Shyam Deo Pandey and others v. State of Bihar, AIR 1971 SC 1606. In paragraph 20 of the judgment, the Supreme Court while considering the appeal that had been dismissed observed to the following effect :-

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioner assails the order passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge primarily on the ground that neither the petitioner was heard nor the record was perused and, therefore, the appeal could not be dismissed for non-prosecution.