IPC Section 71 - Limit Of Punishment Of Offence
IPC Section 71 states that - anyone who commits an offence such that which consists of several parts & each of the part is an offence then, the offender shall not be liable for more than one offence (unless it is clearly expressed).
- Where anything is an offence falling within two or more different definitions of any law for the time being in force at the time by which the offences are defined or punished, or,
- where several acts, would constitute an offence &, when combined, a separate offence,
- the offender shall not be punished with a severe punishment than the Court could award for any one of such offences.
Illustrations
(a) 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 fifty years, one for each blow. But he is liable only to one punishment for the whole beating.
(b) But, if, while A is beating Z, Y interferes, and A intentionally strikes Y, here, as the blow given to Y is no part of the act whereby A voluntarily causes hurt to Z, A is liable to one punishment for voluntarily causing hurt to Z, and to another for the blow given to Y.
[Corresponding Provision in BNS: Section 9 Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023]
