IMPORTANT POINT
An appellate court cannot confirm a conviction and remand solely for sentencing; it must decide the appeal as a whole, including the question of probation.

JUDGMENT :

(Rakesh Kainthla, J.)

The present revision is directed against the judgment dated 20.12.2010, passed by learned Presiding Officer, Fast Track Court Mandi, District Mandi, H.P. (learned Appellate Court), vide which the appeal filed by the petitioners (accused before learned Trial Court) was partly allowed, the judgment passed by learned Judicial Magistrate First Class, Court No.2, Mandi (learned Trial Court) convicting the accused was upheld and affirmed but the sentence part of the judgment was set aside and the case was remanded to the learned Trial Court to pass appropriate order of sentence after hearing the parties. (The parties shall hereinafter be referred to in the same manner as they were arrayed before the learned Trial Court for convenience).

2. Briefly stated, the facts giving rise to the present petition are that the police presented a challan against the accused before the learned Trial Court for the commission of offences punishable under Sections 323, 325 , 341 and 506 read with Section 34 of Indian Penal Code ( IPC ). The learned Trial Court framed the charges, recorded the evidence and convicted the accused of the commission of offences punishable under Sections 325 and 323 of IPC read with Section 34 of IPC and sentenced them as under:

3. Being aggrieved by the judgment and orders passed by learned Trial Court, the accused filed an appeal which was decided by the learned Presiding Officer, Fast Track Court, Mandi (learned Appellate Court). Learned Appellate Court held that the learned Trial Court had rightly convicted the accused of the commission of offences punishable under Sections 323 and 325 read with Section 34 of IPC . Their conviction was based on the evidence available on the record and called for no interference. However, the learned Trial Court had not given valid reasons for declining the benefit of probation to the accused. Hence, the sentence part of the judgment passed by learned Trial Court was not sustainable. Consequently, the matter was remanded to the learned Trial Court with the direction to hear the accused on the quantum of sentence and pass an appropriate order on the sentence as per the law.

4. Being aggrieved from the judgment passed by the learned Appellate Court the accused/petitioners have filed the present petition asserting that the learned Appellate Court erred in remitting the matter to the learned Trial Court.

5. I have heard Mr. G. R. Palsra, learned counsel for the petitioners-accused and Mr. Lokender Kutlehria, learned Additional Advocate General for the respondent-State.

6. Mr G. R. Palsra, learned counsel for the petitioner- accused submitted that the learned Appellate Court erred in remitting the matter to the learned Trial Court for considering the grant of probation to the accused. The learned Trial Court had given valid reasons for declining the benefit and if the reasons assigned by the learned Trial Court were not valid, the learned Appellate Court should have granted the benefit of the probation itself instead of remanding the matter to the learned Trial Court. Therefore, he prayed that the present petition be allowed and the judgment passed by the learned Appellate Court be set aside.

7. Mr Lokender Kutlehria, learned Additional Advocate General for the respondent/State submitted that the learned Trial Court had not given valid reasons to decline the benefit of probation and learned Appellate Court had rightly remanded the matter to the learned Trial Court fo