The Indian Penal Code, 1860

What it does

The Indian Penal Code, 1860 was the substantive criminal law of India. It defined offences and prescribed punishments, and it stated the general principles on which criminal liability rests: the general exceptions, abetment, criminal conspiracy, attempt and common intention. It did not provide the procedure for investigating or trying an offence. That was the work of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and the law of evidence was separate again.

It has been repealed. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 replaced it from 1 July 2024, and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 replaced the procedure and evidence codes on the same day. This page is therefore about a repealed instrument. It still matters because the Code continues to govern offences committed before 1 July 2024, as the repealing law provides and as the Constitution requires, since no person may be convicted of an offence under a law that was not in force when the act was done.

Who it binds

It bound any person who committed an offence within India, and, to the extent the Code provided, a citizen or a person on an Indian ship or aircraft who committed an offence outside India. For acts before 1 July 2024 it still describes the offence and the punishment that apply. For acts from that date, the Sanhita applies and the reference is to its sections.

What has changed, and when

• The Code was enacted in 1860 and came into force on 1 January 1862.
• Parliament amended it many times, and the Supreme Court read down or struck down some provisions on constitutional grounds, so a reading of an old section has to take account of both.
• The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 replaced the Code from 1 July 2024. The sections were renumbered and some provisions changed. A provision may therefore have a new number, a different text, or none. As one example in the site's notes, cruelty by a husband or his relatives towards a married woman, which was section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, is now sections 85 and 86 of the Sanhita.

What turns on it in practice

The first question in any criminal matter that spans the change is which law applies. An offence alleged to have been committed before 1 July 2024 is tried under the Code, although the procedure that applies to the trial may be that of the new procedural Sanhita. A complaint may allege acts before and after the date, and the charge then has to be framed under the right law for each. The reference to a section in an old complaint, a bail order or a judgment is to the Code, and a lawyer reading a precedent on an old section has to find its counterpart in the Sanhita before applying it to a new case.

The second is the use of old judgments. The Supreme Court's decisions on sections of the Code remain relevant to what the offence means where the Sanhita reproduces the provision. Where the new text differs, the decision is persuasive only for the part that is unchanged.

The matter arises in the criminal work of this practice, such as bail and economic offences, where the allegations are of earlier years and the old Code's sections are cited in the First Information Report. It arises also in matrimonial disputes, where a cruelty complaint filed under the old section is still being pursued, and the note on divorce, maintenance and the welfare of the child sets out the equivalent provisions of the new Sanhita. The page for the Sanhita deals with the offences as they are now defined.