KARACHI, Dec 4: The jail terms awarded to a convict following one or more trials by the same or different courts are to run consecutively and not concurrently unless the judgment/s expressly stipulates otherwise, a Sindh High Court division bench held on Wednesday.

The ruling came on a petition moved by Sikandar Ali alias Sikoo Sheikh for his release. He said he had been behind bars long enough to have served a life term and merited release if the four jail terms awarded to him in different cases by different courts were allowed to run concurrently and he was given the benefit of remissions.

Relying on sections 35 and 397 of the Crpc and citing a number of Supreme Court judgments, the bench, comprising Justices Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammad Sadiq Leghari, declared that the law contemplated consecutive sentences as a rule.