IPC vs BNS: What Changed in India’s Criminal Law

The Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860 was India’s principal criminal law for over 160 years, until 1 July 2024, when the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023 replaced it. The BNS keeps most IPC offences but renumbers them, drops ‘sedition’ as a named offence, adds crimes such as terrorism, organised crime and mob lynching, and cuts the total from 511 sections to 358.

What is the IPC and what is the BNS?

The Indian Penal Code was drafted under Lord Macaulay and enacted in 1860. It defined offences and prescribed punishments for the whole of India and remained the country’s substantive criminal law throughout the colonial and post-independence eras.

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 is its successor. Parliament passed it in December 2023, the President gave assent on 25 December 2023, and the Ministry of Home Affairs notified 1 July 2024 as the date of commencement. The BNS is one of three new criminal laws, alongside the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (which replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure) and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (which replaced the Indian Evidence Act).

What is the core difference between the IPC and the BNS?

The core difference is one of structure and emphasis rather than a wholesale rewrite. The BNS re-enacts the bulk of the IPC’s offences, so theft, cheating, culpable homicide and grievous hurt survive with familiar definitions. What changes is the numbering, the grouping of chapters, the addition of several new offences, and the removal of provisions that courts had already read down or struck out.

Because the section numbers have shifted, a charge that citizens once recognised by its IPC number now carries a different BNS number. Murder, formerly Section 302 IPC, is Section 103 BNS. Cheating, once Section 420 IPC, moves to Section 318 BNS. This renumbering is the single change most likely to confuse people during the transition.

How do the IPC and BNS compare?

What new offences does the BNS add?

The BNS adds several offences that the IPC did not name expressly. Terrorism becomes a defined offence within the general criminal code, covering acts intended to threaten the unity, integrity, security or economic stability of the country, or to intimidate the public. Organised crime, including syndicated activities such as kidnapping, extortion, contract killing and cyber-crime, is criminalised as a category in its own right.

The BNS also creates a specific offence for murder committed by a group of five or more persons on grounds such as race, caste, community, sex, language or personal belief, addressing what is popularly called mob lynching. It introduces community service as a form of punishment for a set of minor offences, and it recasts provisions on offences against women and children into a more consolidated chapter.

What did the BNS remove or change?

Some IPC provisions were dropped because courts had already invalidated them. The offence that criminalised adultery, struck down by the Supreme Court in 2018, is not carried into the BNS. The provision that had been used to criminalise consensual same-sex relations, read down by the Supreme Court in 2018, also finds no place. The BNS drops the standalone offence of attempt to commit suicide as it stood, reflecting the shift already made by mental-health legislation.

The most debated change is the treatment of sedition. The BNS does not use the word ‘sedition’ and repeals the old Section 124A framing. In its place is a provision penalising acts that endanger the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India, such as encouraging secession or armed rebellion. Legal commentators disagree on whether this narrows the offence or merely renames it, and courts will shape its meaning over time.

How does the transition between the codes work?

The two codes now run in parallel for a period. Any offence committed on or before 30 June 2024 continues to be investigated, charged and tried under the IPC and the old Code of Criminal Procedure. Any offence committed on or after 1 July 2024 is dealt with under the BNS and the new procedural laws. This means a single police station may handle both IPC and BNS matters for years until the older cases are disposed of.

For ordinary citizens, the practical effect is that an FIR filed today cites BNS sections, while a pending case from 2023 still refers to IPC sections. Lawyers, police and courts are using concordance tables that map each IPC section to its BNS equivalent to avoid errors during the changeover.

How does the BNS treat offences against women and children?

The BNS consolidates offences against women and children into a clearer chapter and revises several related provisions. It retains the core offences of sexual assault, cruelty and trafficking, while adjusting definitions and, in some categories, enhancing punishments. Deceiving a woman into a sexual relationship on a false promise of marriage is addressed as a distinct wrong, separate from the general offence of rape.

The reform package as a whole places greater emphasis on the position of victims, including provisions for recording statements and for keeping complainants informed about the progress of their cases. These procedural aspects sit chiefly in the accompanying Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, but they are designed to work together with the substantive offences defined in the BNS.

Does the BNS change how punishments are structured?

The BNS keeps the familiar range of punishments, including imprisonment, fine and, for the gravest offences, the death penalty. Its notable innovation is the introduction of community service as a recognised form of punishment for certain minor offences, such as petty theft below a threshold value, attempting suicide to restrain a public servant, or a first instance of defamation in some readings. This gives courts a non-custodial option intended to be reformative for low-level wrongdoing.

Some offences also see revised penalties. The code increases fines and, in specified categories, the length of imprisonment, while it removes provisions that had fallen out of use or been invalidated by the courts. The overall aim, as described in official material, is to make the code simpler, more contemporary and better suited to present-day conditions.

Why does the change matter for accountability?

For an accountability-minded reader, the shift is significant because the criminal code defines what the state may punish and how heavily. Renaming or redefining offences such as sedition, terrorism and organised crime alters the boundary between protected expression and prohibited conduct. Tracking how these new provisions are used, and how courts interpret them, is central to scrutinising the exercise of state power. The authoritative text of the BNS is published by India Code, and independent summaries by PRS Legislative Research help readers compare the old and new provisions clause by clause.

Understanding the difference between the IPC and the BNS is therefore not merely a matter of new section numbers. It is about knowing which law applies to a given event, what conduct is now criminal, and where the wording has genuinely changed rather than simply moved. As the older IPC cases work their way out of the system over the coming years, familiarity with both codes will remain necessary for lawyers, police, journalists and citizens alike.