SUBRAMONIAN Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE cases had earlier come up for hearing before one of us (the Acting Chief Justice) and Justice Vadakkel when the court passed the following order:

(2.) THE questions which relate to sentencing process were argued over a wide canvass - really a review of jural perspectives - by both the learned Public Prosecutor and Mr. S. Sivaraman, Advocate as amicus curiae. We think we should express our thanks to both the counsel who enabled us to make an analysis of the present day trends in sentencing which may be of some help to the courts below in the matter of deciding on the punishment that should be imposed.

(3.) THE general rule is that a sentence commences to run from the time of it being passed but this section creates an exception in the case of persons already undergoing imprisonment and postpones the operation of the subsequent sentence until after expiry of the previous sentence. In re Krishnanand-3 Bengal Law' Reports A. C. 50 Sobrai, 20 WR (Calcutta) 70. Thus as in England, punishments are normally made cumulative but the court is given a discretion to make the subsequent sentence run concurrently with such previous sentence. Naturally the discretion given to the court can only be a judicial discretion. THE discretion can be exercised at the appellate or revisional stage also. See Ningappa Vyankappa v. Emperor (AIR 1931 Bombay 529) and Baijnath v. State (AIR 1961 Patna 138).