was convicted and sentenced to death by one single judgment, a 2-judge bench of this court found that there was infraction of Section 235(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure and set aside the sentence and remanded the matter to the Sessions Court. The aspect of remand was considered by a 3-judge bench in Dagdu and Others v. State of Maharashtra,5 wherein it was observed that the failure on the part of the trial court to hear the accused on sentencing does not necessarily entail a remand to that court. If the trial court has failed to do so and the accused challenges the same before the higher court, it would be open to the higher court to remedy the breach by giving a hearing to the accused on the question of sentence. More precisely, Goswami J. in Dagdu (supra) observed: “Whenever an appeal court finds that the mandate of Section 235(2) CrPC for a hearing on sentence had not been complied with, it, at once, becomes the duty of the appeal court to offer to the accused an adequate opportunity to produce before it whatever materials he chooses in whatever reasonable way possible.” Analysing several decisions of this Court on this issue, Uday U. Lalit, J., in Shatrughna Baban Meshram v. State of Maharashtra,6 observed that merely on account of infraction of Section 235(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the death 5 (1977) 3 SCC 68 6 (2021) 1 SCC 596 Criminal Appeal Nos. 1473-1474 of 2017 Page 25 of 30