Concurrent sentences need court order: HC
A person convicted and sentenced separately in multiple criminal cases cannot have the sentences run concurrently unless the respective courts specifically direct so in their judgments, the High Court has ruled.
The court said that when a person is sentenced in separate cases, the sentence in a subsequent case will take effect only after completion of the sentence imposed in the earlier case, unless the judgments clearly direct that the sentences will run concurrently.
A High Court bench comprising Justice Md Habibul Gani and Justice Sheikh Tahsin Ali delivered the judgment on August 27, 2025, rejecting a rule issued in a writ petition challenging the continued detention of a convict who had been sentenced in six separate cheque-dishonour cases.
The full text of the judgment was recently published on the Supreme Court website.
The judgment was delivered in the case of Md Nasir Uddin vs the State. The court directed Nasir Uddin to surrender before the concerned lower court within two months. Justice Sheikh Tahsin Ali authored the main judgment.
According to the judgment, Chattogram businessman Md Nasir Uddin was convicted and sentenced to different terms in six separate cases filed under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, over cheque dishonour.
He was arrested on September 5, 2021, and was subsequently shown arrested in several other cases.
Claiming that he had completed his sentences but was still being unlawfully detained, Nasir Uddin filed a writ petition before the High Court in 2022.
Following the preliminary hearing, the High Court issued a rule on April 11, 2022, asking why the respondents’ failure to release him despite the alleged completion of his sentences should not be declared illegal and without lawful authority. The court also granted him interim bail.
During the hearing, the petitioner’s lawyer, Md Shah Alam, argued that Nasir Uddin had remained in custody during the trials and that the period of his detention had not been deducted from his sentences.
He argued that if the period of custody was adjusted under Section 35A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Nasir Uddin had already completed his sentences and should be released.
However, Advocate Md Samir Sattar, appearing for the respondents, argued that under Section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a sentence imposed in a subsequent case takes effect after completion of the sentence in the earlier case unless the court specifically directs that the sentences will run concurrently.
He said no such direction had been issued by the trial courts in Nasir Uddin’s cases.
High Court’s findings
After hearing both sides and examining the relevant documents, the High Court rejected the rule.
The court observed that Nasir Uddin had not challenged the legal validity of Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, nor had he established any jurisdictional error or irregularity in the proceedings.
The court held that a challenge to the criminal proceedings under Section 138 of the 1881 Act through a writ petition was therefore not legally maintainable.
The High Court directed Nasir Uddin to surrender before the concerned lower court within two months of the judgment. If he failed to do so, the lower court would issue a warrant of sentence against him.
The court also directed the petitioner’s lawyer to prepare a calculation sheet showing the period Nasir Uddin had remained in custody during the trials of the six cases.
After verification of the lower-court records, the calculation statement would be submitted to the jail authorities so that the period of detention during trial could be properly deducted from the sentences in each case in accordance with Section 35A of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The jail authorities were directed to calculate the total period of pre-trial detention and deduct the applicable period from the sentences imposed in the respective cases.
Court’s observation on concurrent sentences
The High Court observed that under Section 35A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the period an accused spends in custody during trial can be deducted only from the sentence imposed in the particular case in which the accused was detained.
Since the trial courts in the separate cases did not direct that the sentences would run concurrently, the sentences would take effect consecutively under Section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the court said.
The court further observed that unless the validity of the relevant law is challenged, there is no scope to quash criminal proceedings through writ jurisdiction. It also held that the High Court cannot interfere, in exercise of its writ jurisdiction, with criminal judgments passed by trial courts in such circumstances.
