Where a person is convicted of an offence which is made up of parts each of which constitutes an offence or when a person is convicted of more offences than one, the limitations imposed by Section 71 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 35 of the Code must be adhered to. When a person is convicted of more than one offence, the Court should be careful to pass a separate sentence for each offence, so that if the conviction is set aside on appeal with respect to one of the offences, there will be no room for doubt as to the sentences passed with respect to the rest. The Court has a discretion to make such sentences run concurrently, and this discretion should be exercised so as to make the effective sentence proportionate to the gravity of the offence. Under Section 397 of the Code the Court has power to order, in a case where an accused person is already undergoing imprisonment for another offence, that a subsequent sentence of imprisonment passed on him shall take effect at once and run concurrently which the sentence he is undergoing.
