#Double Punishment

Allahabad High Court rules that convicting an accused under both POCSO Act Section 6 and IPC Section 376(2)(i) for the same act of rape on a minor constitutes double punishment, violating legal principles. The court reduced the sentence to 14 years while affirming conviction under POCSO, setting a precedent for sentencing in similar cases.

The J&K High Court has ruled that excluding suspension periods from seniority calculations, while crediting them for increments and pension, amounts to double punishment and breaches the principle of service continuity. This impacts all government and public sector employees facing disciplinary suspension, ensuring promotions are based on actual service tenure, not punitive exclusion.

The Supreme Court has clarified that while multiple convictions under Sections 20, 25, and 29 of the NDPS Act can stand simultaneously, fines cannot be imposed separately if the sentences run concurrently. This prevents double punishment in financial penalties, protecting accused persons from disproportionate economic burden even when convicted on multiple counts for the same transaction.