The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Replaced the 511-Section Indian Penal Code With 358 Sections on 1 July 2024, and Two Companion Laws Rewrote Criminal Procedure and Evidence

India’s criminal law now rests on three Acts that Parliament passed in December 2023 and that took effect on 1 July 2024. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023 defines offences and punishments in 358 sections and replaced the Indian Penal Code of 1860, which the Government’s explanatory slides put at 511 sections. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023 sets out procedure in 531 sections and replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1973, whose final section was 484. The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA), 2023 holds the rules of evidence in 170 sections and replaced the Indian Evidence Act of 1872, which ended at section 167.

The Seventh Schedule of the Constitution puts criminal law, criminal procedure, and evidence on the Concurrent List (entries 1 and 2 of List III, and entry 12), so Parliament and state legislatures can both make laws on them. Police and public order are State List subjects (entries 2 and 1 of List II). That split explains why the Union’s Acts leave many details to State Governments, such as the form of the FIR register and the date from which forensic visits start. The wider arrangement is covered in A Union of States.

From a December 2023 assent to a 1 July 2024 start

All three Acts received the President’s assent on 25 December 2023 and appeared in the Gazette of India Extraordinary that day as Acts 45, 46 and 47 of 2023. The BNS says it comes into force on a date the Central Government appoints by notification. The Ministry of Home Affairs told the Lok Sabha on 3 December 2024 that the three laws are in force from that date, with two exceptions: section 106(2) of the BNS, and the entry for it in the First Schedule of the BNSS.

The Bills had a longer path than the Acts suggest. PRS Legislative Research, an independent research group in New Delhi, records that all three were introduced in the Lok Sabha on 11 August 2023 and examined by the Standing Committee on Home Affairs, which submitted its reports on 10 November 2023. Eight members of the committee submitted dissent notes, PRS says, arguing among other things that the Bills largely repeated the existing laws, that Hindi-only names might breach the Constitution, and that experts and the public had not been consulted enough. The Government then withdrew the original Bills and introduced second versions on 12 December 2023, with some of the committee’s suggestions included. The Lok Sabha passed them on 20 December and the Rajya Sabha on 21 December.

PRS counted nine hours 28 minutes of discussion on the three Bills in the Lok Sabha, where 34 members spoke, and six hours eight minutes in the Rajya Sabha, where 40 spoke. It also recorded that between 14 and 21 December 100 Lok Sabha members and 46 Rajya Sabha members were suspended, 19% of the strength of each House. How a Bill moves between the Houses is explained in how a Bill becomes an Act.

What changed in the list of offences

The Government’s slides say the BNS adds 20 offences, deletes 19 provisions and raises the term of imprisonment for 33 offences. Chapter V now opens the list with offences against woman and child, ahead of the offences against the human body, murder among them, in Chapter VI. Several changes are easy to find by section number.

Section 103(2) makes it an offence for a group of five or more people acting together to commit murder on grounds such as race, caste or community, sex, place of birth, language or personal belief. Each member faces death or life imprisonment. Section 69 punishes sex obtained by deceitful means or a false promise to marry, short of rape, with up to ten years, and its explanation lists a false promise of a job or promotion and marrying by hiding one’s identity as deceit. Section 70(2) sets life imprisonment or death for each member of a group that rapes a woman under 18.

Sections 111 to 113 are new. Section 111 defines organised crime as continuing unlawful activity by a syndicate (kidnapping, robbery, vehicle theft, extortion, land grabbing, contract killing, economic offences, cyber-crime, trafficking and more) using violence, threats or coercion for gain. “Continuing unlawful activity” means a cognizable offence carrying three years or more, with more than one chargesheet filed in the previous ten years and cognizance taken. Where a death results the punishment is death or life imprisonment with a fine of at least ten lakh rupees (1,000,000); otherwise it is five years to life with a fine of at least five lakh. Section 112 covers petty organised crime by gangs, such as pickpocketing and selling exam papers, at one to seven years. Section 113 defines a terrorist act and sets death or life imprisonment where a death results, and five years to life otherwise.

Section 4(f) adds community service to the list of punishments. The Act names it as an option in five offences, among them theft under 5,000 rupees by a first-time offender who returns the property (section 303(2)), appearing drunk in public and causing annoyance (section 355), and defamation (section 356(2)). The Gazette text does not define the term.

The Government’s slides list three major deletions: sedition (IPC section 124A), the provision on intercourse against the order of nature (section 377) and adultery (section 497). The Standing Committee had recommended keeping adultery in a gender-neutral form and bringing back a version of section 377, according to PRS. Parliament did not.

In place of sedition, section 152 punishes anyone who by words, signs, electronic communication or use of financial means excites secession, armed rebellion or subversive activities, encourages separatist feelings, or endangers India’s sovereignty, unity and integrity. The penalty is life imprisonment or up to seven years. An explanation says that comments disapproving of Government measures, made to get them changed by lawful means, are not an offence. PRS noted that the provision may retain aspects of sedition.

The BNSS: from first report to judgment

PRS notes that the BNSS retains most of the CrPC. It adds deadlines and electronic routes at many of the steps. Section 173 lets a person give information about a cognizable offence (one for which police can arrest without a warrant) orally or electronically to a police station, whatever the area where the offence happened. That is the zero FIR. An electronic report must be signed within three days. The informant gets a free copy, and for offences carrying three years or more but less than seven the officer may, with a Deputy Superintendent’s permission, hold a preliminary enquiry of up to 14 days before investigating.

Investigation gets markers. Section 193 requires the police to tell the informant or victim how the investigation is going within 90 days, and to finish within two months in the rape offences and listed child sexual offences. Section 105 requires searches and seizures to be recorded on video, preferably by mobile phone. Section 176(3) obliges police to bring a forensic expert to the crime scene in any offence carrying seven years or more, but only from a date each State Government notifies within a period of five years.

Custody rules changed. Section 187 lets a Magistrate authorise police custody in parts, up to 15 days in all, at any time in the first 40 of a 60-day detention period or the first 60 of a 90-day period. PRS warned that this could be used to deny bail for the whole period if police had not used their 15 days. Section 479 gives bail to an undertrial (a person awaiting trial) who has served half the maximum sentence for the offence, and a first-time offender who has served one-third, excluding offences punishable by death or life imprisonment.

Court stages carry limits too, and the courts that apply them are laid out in how Indian courts are organised. An accused person may apply for discharge within 60 days of committal to the Sessions Court (section 250), and in a case only the Sessions Court can try, the judge must frame charges within 60 days of the first hearing on charge (section 251). Judgment must follow within 30 days of the end of arguments, extendable to 45 for recorded reasons (section 258). Section 346 allows at most two adjournments where events are beyond a party’s control, and says a lawyer’s engagement in another court is no ground. Section 356 permits trial and judgment in the absence of a proclaimed offender, after two warrants at least 30 days apart, a newspaper notice and a wait of 90 days from the framing of charges. Section 530 allows trials, summonses, witness examination and appeals in electronic mode.

The BSA: a phone video as a document

The Evidence Act’s main rules carried over, including those on confessions and burden of proof, PRS notes. The change is in electronic records. Section 2(1)(d) of the BSA defines a document to include electronic and digital records, and section 61 says such a record cannot be refused as evidence merely because it is electronic. Under section 63, printed or stored computer output is admissible if the section’s conditions are met and a certificate accompanies it. The Schedule to the Act prescribes that certificate in two parts, one for the party and one for an expert, and each asks for the hash value of the record and the algorithm used (SHA1, SHA256, MD5 or another accepted standard). A hash value is a code worked out from the file’s contents that changes if the file is altered.

PRS observed that the Bill classes electronic records as primary evidence, which the old Act did not, and that it also widened secondary evidence to include oral and written admissions. PRS saw a contradiction between treating electronic records as documents, which may not need certification, and keeping the certificate rule, and said the Bill gave no safeguards against tampering during investigation.

Which law governs a case from before July 2024

Article 20(1) of the Constitution, one of the guarantees described in Fundamental Rights in India, bars conviction except under a law in force when the act was done, and a penalty heavier than the one then available. The Acts handle the changeover in their repeal clauses. Section 358 of the BNS keeps the IPC’s effect on past acts and lets proceedings continue as if the Code had not been repealed. Section 531 of the BNSS and section 170 of the BSA send any appeal, trial, inquiry or investigation pending on 1 July 2024 to be handled under the CrPC and the Evidence Act.

Procedure can still reach back. On 23 August 2024 the Supreme Court held, in its prisons-conditions case, that section 479 of the BNSS applies to undertrials in cases registered before 1 July 2024 as well, LiveLaw reported, and told jail superintendents to send eligible prisoners’ applications to the courts. By 22 October 2024 only 19 of 36 States and Union Territories had filed the status reports it had required.

What the courts have been asked, and what the Government reports

Three questions have reached the courts. On the names, the Kerala High Court dismissed a public-interest petition in August 2024 that argued the Hindi titles breached Article 348, holding that a title is not the authoritative text and that no right exists to have an Act’s title in a familiar language, according to Verdictum’s report. On section 152, the Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre on 8 August 2025 on a petition by a retired Major General, who argues that it revives sedition under a new name, and tagged it with another pending case. In May 2022 the Court had ordered sedition proceedings and prosecutions under section 124A to be kept in abeyance. On section 106(2), which sets up to ten years for a driver who causes death by rash driving and leaves without reporting it, against five under section 106(1), the Delhi High Court said on 15 July 2026 that it is for the Government to notify the provision when it sees fit.

The Government reports progress in its own figures. The Ministry told the Lok Sabha that 13,87,396 FIRs had been lodged under the new laws by 25 November 2024. The Government’s New India Samachar, in its 1 to 15 July 2026 issue, reports more than 63 lakh FIRs under the BNS over the first two years, with chargesheets or final reports in about 52 lakh, and nearly 60,000 zero FIRs. It puts chargesheets filed within 60 days at over 61% against around 50% under the old regime. The issue gives no count of States that have notified a start date for forensic visits under section 176(3).