Answer
Ans. (a)
Solitary Confinement:
This is a kind of imprisonment which secludes the prisoner from any intercourse or sight of and communication with other prisoners. It may be accompanied with or without labour.
S. 73 of the Code provides that whenever any person is convicted of an offence for which under the Code the Court has power to sentence him to rigorous imprisonment, the Court may, by its sentence, order that the offender shall be kept in solitary confinement for any portion or portions of the, imprisonment to which he is sentenced not exceeding three months in the whole.
Terms of imprisonment
Solitary confinement
not exceeding six months
exceeding six month but not
exceeding one year
exceeding one year
a time not exceeding one month
a time not exceeding two months
a time not exceeding three months
From the above, it is evident that maximum period of solitary
Confinement is three months that too if the total rigorous imprisonment exceeds a period of one year. The barest minimum being not exceeding one month.
S. 74 of the Code prescribes the limit of solitary confinement. It says that in executing a sentence of solitary confinement such confinement shall in no case exceed fourteen (14) days at a time with intervals between the period of solitary confinement of not less duration than such periods and when the imprisonment awarded shall exceed three months the solitary confinement snail not exceed seven days in anyone month of the whole imprisonment awarded with intervals between the period of solitary confinement of not less duration than such period.
Ans. (b)
Cumulative Penalties:
The law on cumulative penates is enshrined in Section 71 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which reads as follows:
Where anything which is an offence is made up of parts, any of which parts is itself an offence4 the offender shall not be punished with the punishment of more than one of such of his offences, unless it be 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 of themselves constitute an offence, constitute; when combined a different offence, the offender. Shall not be punished with a more severe punishment than the Court which tries him could award for any one of such offences.”
Illustrations
(a) A gives Z 50 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 makeup the whole beating if Z was liable for punishment for each blow he might be imprisoned for fifty years i.e., one year for each stroke but he is liable to one punishment for the whole beating.
(b) Conversely if A is beating Z. Y interferes and A intentionally strikes Y as well here the blow given to Y is not part of the beating given to Z. Thus, A shall be liable to punishment for the hurt caused to Z and other for the hurt given to Y. He will in this way be punished two times
In this context, S. 235 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 is also relevant. If it is read with S. 71 the result would run as
follows:
(a) A repetition in the same transaction of several acts of exactly the same character may constitute one crime for the purpose of imposition of punishment, e.g.
(b)A single transaction may give rise to either:
(i) several offences of a different character each complete in itself and distant from each other e.g., criminal breach of trust accompanied by fabrication of accounts as a preliminary of a sequel to such a breach.
(2)Several offences of the same character but affecting different persons as a single gunshot fired with criminal intent which may injure two or more persons. Each such offence is separately punishable
(c) The same series of offence may constitute different offences. All may be charged but one offence may be regarded as committed for the purpose of inflicting punishment e.g.
(i) a person who sets a warehouse on fire which act if punishable both under Sections 435 & 436 of Code.
In such cases only one offence is committed and the punishment must not exceed that applicable to the grave offence for it is a-general rule that when in the same penal statute there are two clauses applicable to the same act of an accused the punishments are not to be regarded as cumulative unless it be so provided.
An act, in itself an offence, may become either an aggravated form of that offence, or a different offence when combined with some other acts, innocent or criminal. Thus -a person, who has committed house breaking in order to commit theft, can be charged with and convicted of each of these offences