The State said the record must be summoned before its appeal could be decided, and the Bench says no
Nineteen years after a fertiliser buyer was stabbed on the road home, the State’s appeal against the acquittal of two men is dismissed summarily — a power the High Court holds it keeps even after granting leave.
On 23 September 2026 a Division Bench of Justice Abdul Moin and Justice Pramod Kumar Srivastava at the Lucknow Bench dismissed a government appeal against an acquittal — and did so summarily, without calling for the trial court record. The reasoning on that second point is the part with the widest reach.
A killing on the way back from the market
The case dates to November 2007. A man of about fifty-two had gone to the Lakhimpur market to buy fertiliser. Returning home that evening, near Andesh Nagar Farm Colony, he was met by two unknown persons who killed him with a knife. The incident occurred at about six in the evening, and an FIR against unknown persons was lodged the same night at 10.10 p.m. on the written tehreer of the informant.
The investigating officer prepared the inquest, sealed and sent the body for autopsy, collected blood-stained earth and a soil sample, and took the belongings scattered near the body. Three days later a witness named two men, Kishore alias Ram Kishore and Anoop.
Both were arrested on 20 November 2007, with a country-made pistol of 12 bore, two live cartridges and a knife. Separate Arms Act cases followed against each — Sections 3/25 against one and 4/25 against the other — alongside the main case under Sections 392 and 302 IPC.
The prosecution led ocular and formal evidence through six witnesses: the informant, three police officers, the doctor who conducted the post-mortem, and a head constable. The Additional Sessions Judge at Lakhimpur Kheri acquitted both men by a judgment of 26 September 2025. The State appealed.
Leave granted does not mean the record must come
The State’s counsel argued that it would not be in the interests of justice to decide the appeal without summoning the trial court record.
The Bench held the issue no longer res integra, following a Division Bench decision of 18 September 2026 in another government appeal. Where leave to appeal has been granted under sub-section (3) of Section 378 of the Code, an appeal can still be dismissed summarily under Section 384 of the Code — now Section 425 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita — after recording reasons, and it is not mandatory to summon the record. The argument was rejected.
That matters beyond this case. Leave to appeal is the gate; it is not a guarantee that the appeal will be heard on a full record. A High Court that has let the State in through the gate may still dismiss at the threshold, provided it gives reasons.
It is also a point of live practical importance now that the Code has been replaced. The Bench expressly maps Section 384 of the old Code onto Section 425 of the new Sanhita, so the summary dismissal power survives the transition intact.
The double presumption
On the merits the judgment restates the settled restraint that governs an appeal against acquittal, drawing on Bannareddy v. State of Karnataka (2018) 5 SCC 790, in which the Supreme Court held that a High Court should not reappreciate the evidence in its entirety in such an appeal.
It then sets out the five principles from Dhanapal v. State by Public Prosecutor, Madras (2009) 10 SCC 401. An accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and an acquittal by the trial court bolsters that presumption. The appellate court’s power to review evidence is wide and it may reappraise the whole record on facts and law, but it must give due weight to the trial court’s decision. The trial court had the distinct advantage of watching the witnesses and is better placed to assess their credibility. An acquittal may be disturbed only for very substantial and compelling reasons. And where two reasonable views are possible — one leading to acquittal, the other to conviction — the appellate court must rule in favour of the accused.
That last principle is what the Bench applies. The opinion expressed by the trial court, it holds, is not merely a possible view but a fair and reasonable one, and cannot be termed perverse in any manner. It therefore does not warrant interference.
The dismissal
There is always a presumption of innocence, the judgment records, and in the case of an acquittal there is a double presumption; the burden lies on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The trial court had passed a detailed, reasoned and speaking judgment, and the Bench found no infirmity in it — no manifest error, illegality, non-application of mind or failure to appreciate the evidence that could compel a different conclusion.
Finding no merit in the appeal, the Bench held it liable to be dismissed summarily, and dismissed it accordingly.
Nineteen years passed between the killing and this judgment, eighteen of them before the trial court reached its verdict. The two men arrested three days after the offence were acquitted in 2025; the State's challenge to that acquittal lasted a further year and was disposed of without the record being sent for.