5.4 Determining the Term of Imprisonment

The sentence's arithmetic — the Sentencing Act 2074's discipline and the courts' jurisprudence: 1. Custody credit: the pre-trial and pre-sentence detention counted against the term (the remand's deduction — the "from arrest" computation). 2. Concurrent vs consecutive: multiple sentences' operation — the general practice of concurrent running where the law so provides, and the single-act ceiling: where one act constitutes several offences, the rule against cumulation — only the maximum sentence is served. 3. The prescribed case (the cumulation landmark): Samir Khan vs. Kathmandu District Court et.al, NKP (2071 B.S.), No. 9, D.No. 9245 — three Bangladeshi nationals convicted on forged- passport-and-citizenship offences (cumulated sentences totalling two years and seven months across the Citizenship Act 2063, the Passports Act and the old Code's forgery chapter from a single act-cluster); in habeas corpus, the Supreme Court held that the detention warrant's cumulation violated the punishment-chapter rule — for multiple offences arising from a single act, the maximum sentence alone is served unless the law expressly provides otherwise — and the petitioners, having served the lawful maximum, were ordered released. The case is the standard citation for term-determination and the anti-cumulation principle. 4. Fine default and conversion: the fine's non-payment consequences (recovery against property; the default custody within the statute's conversion rules). 5. Remission, parole and release: the sentence's shortening faces (good…