Judgment

( 1 ) THESE four appeals have been filed against judgments of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana rejecting the claims of the appellants who have been convicted by the General Courts-Martial for offences under the Army Act and are undergoing their sentences of varying terms of imprisonment for the grant of benefit to them of the provision for set-off contained in Section 428 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The High Court has granted certificates of fitness under Article 134a of the Constitution and it is on the strength of those certificates that these appeals have been preferred to this Court.

( 2 ) THE common question of law that arises in these appeals concerns the applicability of Section 428 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to persons sentenced to undergo imprisonment by General Courts-Martial under the Army Act. The position under the Army Act will equally govern persons sentenced to undergo imprisonment by Courts-Martial under the Navy Act and the Air Force Act.

( 3 ) IN the judgments under appeal, the High Court has followed an earlier ruling of a Division Bench of the same High Court in Ram Labhaya Sharma v. Union of India in Criminal Writ No. 40 of 1975 decid