Supreme Court: two life sentences from a single trial cannot be directed to run consecutively

The Supreme Court held that where a trial court convicts an accused of two offences carrying life imprisonment in a single trial, it cannot direct that the life sentences run consecutively, one after the other. A trial court had convicted the appellant under Section 302 (murder) and Section 376 read with Section 342 (rape and wrongful confinement) of the Indian Penal Code, sentencing him to life imprisonment on each count and directing the sentences to run consecutively; the Bombay High Court had confirmed this. A Bench of Justices K.V. Viswanathan and Arun Palli set aside only the direction on consecutive sentences, holding that since life imprisonment lasts for the remainder of a convict's natural life, two such sentences cannot logically run one after the other.

Following the Court's earlier decision in Muthuramalingam, it directed that the two life sentences be treated as superimposed on each other, so that any remission or commutation granted by the competent authority for one offence does not automatically result in remission of the sentence for the other offence. The rest of the trial court's order, including the conviction, the fine, and the set-off under Section 428 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for the period already spent in custody, was left undisturbed. A connected appeal on an unrelated point was disposed of as infructuous.