State and illustrate the law of cumulative penalties as stated in the Indian Penal Code.

Question: State and illustrate the law of cumulative penalties as stated in the Indian Penal Code.

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Answer

The Law of Cumulative Punishment in India is enshrined under Section 71 of the Indian Penal Code. Section 71 of IPC provides a limit of punishment of offences made up of several offences. It states that where anything which is an offence is made up of parts, any of which parts is itself an offence; the offender shall not be punished with the punishment of more than one of such of his offences unless it is so expressly provided.

Where anything is an offence falling within two or more separate definitions of any law in force for the time being by which offences are defined or punished, or

Where several acts, of which one or more than one would by itself or themselves constitute an offence, constitute, when combined, a different offence.,

The offenders shall not be punished with a more severe punishment than the court which tries him could award for any one of such offences. He may be sentenced for more than one offence but the total punishment must not exceed that applicable to the graver offence.

Section 71 merely protects an accused against the multiplicity of punishment and if his act falls within two or more separate definitions of any law in force, it limits the punishment to the maximum term which could be awarded to him for any single offence.

This means that if his conduct amounts to an offence within the meaning of two different penal laws, one of which is punishable up to five years and the other up to seven years, he cannot be awarded a punishment of more than seven years, for then it would amount to punishing him twice over for the same offence. Illustrations of section 71, IPC are:

1. A gives Z fifty strokes with a stick. Here A may have committed the offence of voluntarily causing hurt to Z by the whole beating, and also by each of the blows which make up the whole beating. If A were liable to punishment for every blow, he might be imprisoned for 50 years, one for each blow. But he is liable to one punishment for the whole beating.
2. But if while A is beating Z, Y interferes, and A intentionally strikes Y, here as the blow was given to Y, is not part of the act whereby A voluntarily causes hurt to Z, A is liable to separate punishment.

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