The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023

What it does

The Sanhita is the statute that says what is a crime in India and what punishment follows. It is Act No. 45 of 2023 and it came into force on 1 July 2024 (except section 106(2)), together with the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 on procedure and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 on evidence. It replaced the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

The Code was recast and not discarded. Many offences were carried across with new section numbers and, in places, new words, so the case law on the old section remains the starting point for reading the new one. A pleading has to cite the Sanhita's number, and a court will ask which text the facts fall under.

The Sanhita does not stand alone. Special statutes create their own offences and often their own procedure, and the Sanhita supplies the general part: the definitions, the principles of liability and the residual offences. A prosecution for a commercial wrong may begin under a special statute and still end up with a charge under the Sanhita.

Who it binds

Every person in India, citizen or not, individual or company. The Sanhita also reaches certain offences committed outside India by Indian citizens, and offences committed on Indian ships and aircraft. A company is a person for this purpose, and the site's own note on criminal and sensitive litigation explains how liability reaches a company, either by attributing the mind of its senior officers to it or through the deeming provisions of the particular statute that make the officers in charge answerable.

What moved out of it

The Indian Penal Code, 1860 is repealed, but not retrospectively. Under Article 20(1) of the Constitution, no person is punished for conduct that was not an offence when it was done, or beyond the penalty then in force. An offence alleged to have been committed before 1 July 2024 is therefore tried under the Penal Code, and the older section numbers remain in use in those matters. A charge sheet for such an offence cites the Code and not the Sanhita.

What has changed, and when

Several changes in substance are described in the site's note on criminal and sensitive litigation. The Sanhita adds offences for organised crime, terrorism and mob lynching, which the Penal Code did not carry as offences of their own. Cruelty by a husband or his relatives towards a married woman, which was section 498A of the Penal Code, now sits in sections 85 and 86. Cheating, formerly section 420, is in section 318(4). Section 69 punishes sexual intercourse obtained by deceitful means, and the note records that it has drawn debate over how far it extends beyond the earlier case law on consent obtained by misconception of fact.

The date matters more than the detail. A matter registered on or after 1 July 2024 is read under the Sanhita; one before it stays under the Penal Code. Where an offence is a continuing one, or the dates are disputed, the question of which text applies comes before the merits.

What turns on it in practice

For the white-collar and cyber defence practice, the recurring pattern is a commercial dispute recast as a crime. The site's note describes a breach of contract that is alleged to have been dishonest from the start and is then charged as cheating, and a partnership dispute that becomes an allegation of criminal breach of trust. The first question is whether the complaint discloses an offence under the Sanhita at all, or only a civil wrong dressed as one, and that is where early work on the complaint pays off.

For the matrimonial and family practice, sections 85 and 86 sit beside the civil remedies under the personal law and the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. The Supreme Court has observed that the cruelty provision can be invoked against relatives with no real connection to the allegations, and the note records that caution. The drafting of a complaint, and the response to one, turns on specific allegations against specific persons.

For the artificial intelligence, data and emerging technology practice, the Sanhita is the criminal backstop for conduct that technology has made easier: impersonation, fraud and the other offences that the Information Technology Act, 2000 does not cover on its own terms. Which of the two statutes a charge is framed under, and whether both are, shapes the defence.