MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court rescued a 60-year-old man, Sheik Madhar, from getting incarcerated for ten years in a burglary case after the lower court, which awarded him a jail term of two years in each of the five cases against him on the same day, failed to mention if the sentences should run concurrently or consecutively.
Justice GR Swaminathan noted that according to Section 427 (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, when a person who is already undergoing sentence is subsequently sentenced to imprisonment in a different case, the two sentences should run consecutively after the expiration of the first sentence, unless the sentencing court specifically directs that the sentences should run concurrently.
However, he pointed out that the above provision specifically talks about persons who are already ‘undergoing’ sentence and not the ones who are already ‘sentenced’, meaning that it may not apply to the petitioner who was awarded all five sentences on the same day and yet to undergo them.