The need for a personalized, punitive treatment suited to the offender and the crime, and the therapeutic function of measures employed to treat a convicted offender.

CHANDRASEKHARA MENON, J.

These cases had earlier come up to hearing before one of us (the Acting Chief Justice) and Justice Vadakkel when the court passed the following order :-

"An interesting question which, though of daily occurrence, does not appear to have been posed in this form arises for decision before us on applications by two prisoners in the Cannanore Central Jail. They were charged in C.C. No. 2/82 of the Judicial First Class Magistrate's Court, Chalakudy as also C.C. No. 6/82 of that Court. They were convicted in both the cases and the sentences have not been directed to run concurrently. Their prayer in the petitions is that the sentences may be directed to be run concurrently. This necessarily gives rise to the question as to the circumstances under which a court should normally exercise the discretion to award the sentences concurrently rather than consecutively. The Cr.P.C. does not specify the situations under which a court would be justified in directing sentences to run concurrently though the provisions of the Cr.P.C. indicate that it is open to the court to direct the sentences to run concurrently. This is a question which we will take up for decision in this case. The case will come up posted after a month. Learned counsel Sri S. Sivaraman has agreed to argue the matter as amicus curiae."

2. The questions which relate to sentencing process were argued over a wide canvass - really a review of jural perspectives - by both the learned Public Prosecutor and Mr. S. Sivaraman. Advocate as amicus curiae. We think we should express our thanks to both the counsel who enabled us to make an analysis of the present day trends in sentencing which may be of some help to the courts below in the matter of deciding on the punishment that should be imposed.

3. It will be useful to refer to what a learned author of considerable repute. R. M. Jackson. Emeritus Downing Professor of the Laws of England in the University of Cambridge says of the English practice in respect of consecutive and concurrent sentences in his work. "The Machinery of Justice in England' (Seventh Edition) pages 378, 379 and 380 :

"A person may be tried and convicted of more than one offence and the court will then have to consider what to do in respect of each conviction. Punishments are normally cumulative : thus there may be a fine on each conviction or a fine and imprisonment, but obviously imprisonment renders conditional discharge or probation nugatory. In the case of prison sentences, the court may make them consecutive or concurrent. Consecutive prison sentences may be used to build up what the court regards as a sufficient total, but most indictable offences have such a substantial maximum punishment that there is no need to do that. Theft tried on indictment carries ten years, but it is most unlikely that if, for example, there are convictions of four offences the court would want to use consecutive sentences to make the total more than five. It is more likely that the court would show that each offence was regarded as less serious than if there were four sentences of two years concurrent, but that is no more than a broad indication."

Taking other offences into consideration, it often happens that when a person is charged with one offence he admits the commission of other offences. It would be possible to make each of these other offences the subject of a charge and to prosecute in respect of them all, but that would entail delay and considerable expenditure in preparing for a trial. On the other hand, it is regarded as most important that when an offender is dealt with there shall be nothing left outstanding : in particular, a man leaving prison should have a clear start again in life and should not have to face further criminal proceedings. Hence the practice is to prosecute on a charge or charges in which the case is ready and for the defendant to ask the court to take into consideration in the sentence the other offences. The o