Now Reading: Supreme Court: multiple life terms cannot run consecutively
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Supreme Court: multiple life terms cannot run consecutively
The Story in Brief
The Supreme Court on Tuesday (27 October) ruled that multiple life sentences imposed for separate offences in a single trial cannot be directed to run consecutively. A bench of Justices K V Vishwanathan and Arun Palli set aside a Bombay High Court order that had upheld consecutive life terms for Raju Shantaram Koli, convicted in 2013 for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl.
Quoting the 2016 Constitution bench ruling in Muthuramalingam vs State, the court said directing someone to undergo life imprisonment twice over would be ‘anomalous and irrational’ because a person has only one life. The bench declared that the sentences must be ‘superimposed’ over each other, so that remission or commutation of one does not automatically reduce the other. The fines and other parts of the conviction were upheld.
Indian Opinion Analysis
Both outlets led on the same legal holding, life sentences for multiple offences in a single trial cannot run consecutively, but Hindustan Times explained the remission logic in its second sentence, while Deccan Herald buried similar detail lower. Deccan Herald alone named the writ petition the court did not examine, giving a slightly fuller procedural picture. Neither outlet framed the ruling as pro-government or critical, both reported it as straight Supreme Court precedent, which is uniform for a Constitution-bench follow-up judgment. The difference in emphasis between remission mechanics and unanswered procedural questions is minor. The ruling now binds trial courts to superimpose multiple life terms, and any remission from the competent authority on one sentence will not touch the other.
Coverage: 2 sources, 2 neutral
Sources (2): deccanherald.com (neutral report), hindustantimes.com (neutral report)
This brief was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above, so one read covers every framing they carry. Methodology and corrections.
