The Supreme Court will review if a person convicted of two murders can serve life terms one after another. A past 2016 ruling said multiple life sentences must run concurrently.
NEW DELHI: Today, on June 12, the Supreme Court of India has decided to look into an important legal question: whether a person convicted of committing two murders can be given two separate life sentences to be served one after the other (consecutively), instead of both running together (concurrently).
This issue came up while the court was hearing an appeal related to a judgment passed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2015, which dealt with a double murder case that took place in 2010.
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A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Manmohan is handling the matter.
During the hearing, the bench was informed that a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had already given a ruling on this matter back in July 2016.
That ruling clarified that even though courts can give multiple life sentences for crimes like multiple murders or other offences that are punishable with life imprisonment, those life sentences cannot be ordered to run one after the other.
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In that 2016 Constitution Bench judgment, the top court clearly stated:
“While multiple sentences for imprisonment for life can be awarded for multiple murders or other offences punishable with life term, they cannot be directed to run consecutively.”
This means that a convict who is given more than one life sentence will have to serve them at the same time, rather than one after the other.
The reason behind this is that under Indian law, a life sentence usually means imprisonment for the rest of the person’s natural life.
So, having two life sentences served back-to-back doesn’t add any practical value in terms of punishment.
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