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 offender shall
not be punished with a more severe punishment than the Court which tries him could
award for any one of such offence.
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
makes up the whole beating. If were liable to punishment for every blow, they 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 cause hurt to Z, A is liable to one
punishment, for voluntarily causing hurt to Z, and to another for the blow given to Y.
72. Punishment of person guilty of one of several offences, the judgment stating
that it is doubtful of which: In all cases in which judgment is given that a person is
guilty of one of several offences specified in the judgment, but that it is doubtful of which of
these offences he is guilty, the offender shall be punished for the offence for which the
lowest punishment is provided if the same punishment is not provided, for all.
73. Solitary confinement: Whenever any person is convicted of an offence for which
under this 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, according to the following scale, that is to say"
a time not exceeding one month if the term of imprisonment shall not exceed six months;
a time not exceeding two months if the term of imprisonment shall exceed six months and
shall not exceed one year;
a time not exceeding three months if the term of imprisonment shall exceed one year.
74. Limit of solitary confinement: in executing a sentence of solitary confinement, such
confinement shall in no case exceed fourteen 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 shall not
exceed seven days in any one month of the whole imprisonment awarded, with intervals
between the periods of solitary confinement of not less -duration than such periods.