Section 316: Reduced penalty for releasing the victim

Firm annotation

Section 316 is a mandatory mitigation, not an offence, and it is drafted as an incentive that stays live throughout a kidnapping. Five conditions must all be satisfied: the accused is an offender under Section 313, Section 314 or Section 315; that offender arranges for the person taken away, detained or confined to regain liberty; the release happens before the judgment of the court of first instance; that person has not suffered grievous bodily harm; and that person has not been placed in a condition of imminent danger to life. Where they are met, the court must impose less than the punishment prescribed by law, but not less than one half of it. Two consequences follow from that wording. The reduction is compulsory rather than discretionary, so the court cannot pass the prescribed punishment unchanged. And one half is the floor, so the court may go anywhere between the prescribed punishment and half of it, but no lower. The offender must arrange the release: a rescue by the police, or an escape by the victim, does not earn the reduction, however soon it comes. The section is confined to Sections 313, 314 and 315 and does not touch any other provision in this chapter.