Case Title: Malkeet Singh Gill v. State of Chhattisgarh
The Supreme Court held that the Courts have full discretion to order sentences for two or more offences at one trial to run concurrently.
Brief facts of the case are that the Trial Court convicted the accused for the charges under Sections 409, 420, 409 read with Section 120B and 420 read with Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced them to undergo rigorous imprisonment of 04 years, 07 years, 01 year and 02 years respectively along with fine and also directed to serve the sentences one after the other. The same was upheld by the Appellate Court but the High Court directed that sentences so awarded shall run concurrently.
There arose a contention that whether or not the High Court in criminal revision against conviction is supposed to exercise the jurisdiction like that of the Appellate Court especially when the scope of interference in revision is extremely narrow?
Referring to O.M. Cherian alias Thankachan v. State of Kerala & Ors, the Apex Court dismissed the appeal. It has been observed by the court that-
“20. Under Section 31 CrPC it is left to the full discretion of the court to order the sentences to run concurrently in case of conviction for two or more offences. It is difficult to lay down any straitjacket approach in the matter of exercise of such discretion by the courts. By and large, trial courts and appellate courts have invoked and exercised their discretion to issue directions for concurrent running of sentences, favouring the benefit to be given to the accused. Whether a direction for concurrent running of sentences ought to be issued in a given case would depend upon the nature of the offence or offences committed and the facts and circumstances of the case. The discretion has to be exercised along the judicial lines and not mechanically.”
“21. Accordingly, we answer the reference by holding that Section 31 CrPC leaves full discretion with the court to order sentences for two or more offences at one trial to run concurrently, having regard to the nature of offences and attendant aggravating or mitigating circumstances. We do not find any reason to hold that normal rule is to order the sentence to be consecutive and exception is to make the sentences concurrent. Of course, if the court does not order the sentence to be concurrent, one sentence may run after the other, in such order as the court may direct. We also do not find any conflict in the earlier judgment in Mohd. Akhtar Hussain and Section 31 CrPC.”