Subhas Chandra Sarkar v. The State of West Bengal & Ors., 2026 INSC 1052 (22 September 2026)
What the case was about
The Supreme Court was called upon to settle a procedural question under India’s new criminal procedure code, the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS): when a victim wishes to challenge a magistrate’s order of acquittal, must the appeal be filed before the High Court or the Court of Session? The case arose from the grief of a father seeking accountability for his son’s death in a hospital, but turned on a pure question of appellate jurisdiction. In answering it, the Court also had to decide whether a High Court bench could reject an appeal on grounds of maintainability after another judge had earlier admitted it. The ruling clarifies the distinct appellate pathways available to the State and to victims under the reformed criminal law framework.
The key facts
The petitioner, Subhas Chandra Sarkar, is the father of a young man who, while suffering from depressive disorders, was admitted to a hospital where he died by suicide (para 9). The petitioner attributed the death to the negligence of a doctor and a nurse, and an FIR was registered alleging offences under Sections 304A and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860—a bailable offence (para 9). After trial, the Judicial Magistrate at Alipore acquitted the accused. The petitioner, appearing as the victim, filed an appeal against the acquittal before the Calcutta High Court. Although a learned Single Judge initially admitted the matter, a Coordinate Bench later rejected the appeal, holding that it was not maintainable before the High Court and granting liberty to file it instead before the Court of Session (para 3). Assailing that order, the petitioner filed a Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court in person and was assisted by an Amicus Curiae appointed by the Court.
The questions before the Court
The petition raised three main issues. First, was the High Court correct in holding that a victim’s appeal from a magistrate’s acquittal in a bailable offence could not be entertained by the High Court and had to be filed before the Sessions Court? Second, could a Coordinate Bench of the High Court reject the appeal on maintainability after it had already been admitted by another Single Judge? Third, under the BNSS, does a victim’s appeal against an acquittal by a Judicial Magistrate lie before the High Court or the Court of Session?
What the Court decided and why
A Bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran rejected the Special Leave Petition and upheld the High Court’s order.
On the second issue, the Court rejected the petitioner’s reliance on Rajan Chadha and Another v. Sanjay Arora to argue that once a Single Judge admits a matter, a Coordinate Bench cannot later reject it on maintainability (para 4). The Court distinguished the precedent, noting that in Rajan Chadha, a Single Judge had already found contempt committed and had merely postponed the matter to allow the contemnor to purge it; a subsequent Single Judge could not then undo that definitive finding (para 4). By contrast, in the present case, the earlier Single Judge had only admitted the appeal, whereas the later Bench applied the statutory provision to find it non-maintainable before the High Court—an approach the Supreme Court held was “perfectly in order” (para 5).
Turning to the central question, the Court focused on the proviso to Section 413 of the BNSS, which grants a victim the right to appeal against an order of acquittal (para 10). The proviso states that such an appeal “shall lie to the Court to which an appeal ordinarily lies against the order of conviction of such Court” (para 10). The Court noted that Section 419 of the BNSS, which deals with State appeals against acquittal, does not govern a victim’s appeal under the proviso to Section 413 (para 11). Instead, to identify the correct appellate forum, one must look at where an appeal against conviction would ordinarily lie. Under Section 415(3) of the BNSS, any person convicted by a Magistrate of the First or Second Class may appeal to the Court of Session (para 11). Consequently, the Court held that when a victim challenges an acquittal passed by such a Magistrate, the appeal must also lie to the Sessions Court, “being the court to which an appeal ordinarily lies against the order of conviction by such Magistrate” (para 12). This is so irrespective of whether the offence is bailable or non-bailable (paras 11–12).
The Court also clarified that while Section 419 of the BNSS introduces a “slight deviation” from the old Code of Criminal Procedure by enabling certain State appeals against acquittals in bailable offences to go directly to the High Court, that provision does not alter the forum for a victim’s appeal under Section 413 (paras 8, 11). The statutory scheme thus maintains a clear separation between the government’s appellate rights and those conferred on victims.
Finding the High Court’s order “perfectly in order,” the Supreme Court upheld it (para 13). However, to avoid prejudice to the petitioner after the time lost in bona fide litigation, the Court granted him liberty to file an appeal before the jurisdictional Sessions Court within one month. The Court directed that such appeal “shall be admitted and heard on merits, without considering the delay which has been caused only by reason of a bona fide proceeding taken by the petitioner” (para 13). The Court expressly clarified that it had made no observations on the merits of the acquittal itself, which shall be decided in accordance with law (para 14).
Why it matters
The judgment offers an early but important Supreme Court interpretation of victim appellate rights under the BNSS. By holding that the forum for a victim’s appeal against a magisterial acquittal is tied to the forum for appeals against conviction under Section 415(3), the Court has provided a clear, textually grounded rule that prevents forum-shopping confusion. It underscores that the new Sanhita maintains distinct tracks for State appeals and victim appeals, and that statutory changes affecting the government’s appellate pathway do not automatically redefine the victim’s. For litigants across the country, the ruling establishes that aggrieved family members and victims must approach the Sessions Court—not the High Court—when challenging an acquittal handed down by a Magistrate of the First or Second Class. By shielding the petitioner from procedural delay, the Court also ensured that a technical jurisdictional ruling does not extinguish the substantive right to seek justice.