Legal provisions regarding period of detention undergone by the accused to be set off against the sentence of imprisonment under section 428 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
According to Section 428 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, where an accused person has on conviction, been sentenced to imprisonment for a term, not being imprisonment in default of payment of fine, the period of detention, if any, undergone by him during the investigation, inquiry or trial of the same case and before the date of such conviction, shall be set off against the term of imprisonment imposed on him on such conviction, and the liability of such person to undergo imprisonment on such conviction shall be restricted to the remainder, if any, of the term of imprisonment imposed on him:
Image Source: abc.net.au
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Provided that the cases referred to in Section 433-A, such period of detention shall be set off against the period of fourteen years referred to in that section.
As the imprisonment for life is imprisonment for a term for the purpose of application of Section 428, the life convicts would be entitled to the benefit of set-off under Section 428 of the Code.
The period of detention which Section 428 allows to be set-off against the term of imprisonment imposed on the accused on his conviction must be during the investigation, inquiry or trial in connection with the ‘same case’ in which he has been convicted.
A person undergoing pre-conviction detention is entitled to claim set-off under Section 428 in each of the cases.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
A person undergoing sentence of imprisonment on being convicted of an offence in one case during the period of investigation, inquiry or trial of some other case, cannot claim that the period during which such investigation, etc. continued should be set-off against the sentence of imprisonment to be imposed in the latter case even though he was under detention during such period. This is because; such period of detention is really a part of the period of imprisonment which he is undergoing having been sentenced earlier for another offence.