BNS vs IPC: A Section-by-Section Mapping for Indian Advocates

By LegalInk Editorial · 2026-05-09

BNS vs IPC: A Section-by-Section Mapping for Indian Advocates

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 came into force on 1 July 2024, replacing the Indian Penal Code, 1860 in its entirety. The offences did not disappear; they migrated. FIRs registered on or after that date carry BNS section numbers; matters registered before it remain on the IPC. For advocates running mixed dockets, drafting bail applications, or advising on ongoing investigations, the substantive law is largely the same but the numbering is entirely different — and a misquoted section in a pleading is a professional embarrassment at minimum. This post sets out a verified BNS-IPC mapping for the offences that appear most often in criminal practice — murder, cheating, rape, cruelty against married women, outrage of modesty, and omission by a public servant — with notes on how transition-period cases should be read and argued.

Why the Renumbering Creates Real Docket Risk

It is tempting to treat the IPC-to-BNS shift as clerical: find the new number, carry on. That underestimates the problem on two counts.

Mixed Dockets Are a Long-Term Reality

FIRs registered before 1 July 2024 continue to be investigated, charged, and tried under the IPC. The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 governs procedure for those matters, and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 governs proof. FIRs registered on or after 1 July 2024 attract the BNS, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam.

Given trial timelines in Indian criminal courts, advocates will be running IPC and BNS matters in parallel for the better part of a decade. Treating the transition as a one-time update misreads the reality.

Procedural Provisions Have Also Shifted

The BNSS renumbers procedural provisions alongside the substantive ones. A bail application citing BNSS 480 (formerly CrPC 437) for anticipatory bail will be immediately wrong — BNSS 480 corresponds to regular bail for non-bailable offences, while anticipatory bail has moved to BNSS 482 (formerly CrPC 438). Courts have returned pleadings on exactly such grounds. The BNS-IPC mapping cannot be done in isolation from the BNSS-CrPC mapping.

The Core BNS-IPC Mapping: Six Sections Every Advocate Needs

The provisions below generate the highest volume of criminal briefs in district and sessions courts. Each entry states the IPC section, its BNS equivalent, and any material change beyond renumbering.

Murder — IPC 302 → BNS 103

IPC Section 302 prescribed punishment for murder. BNS Section 103 occupies the same substantive position: culpable homicide amounting to murder, punishable with death or imprisonment for life, along with a fine. The definitional architecture carried through Sections 299 and 300 IPC is reproduced with minor structural reorganisation, but the essential elements — intention, knowledge, and the enumerated clauses — remain intact.

One notable addition: BNS 103 separately addresses murder by a group of five or more persons on the ground of race, caste, community, sex, place of birth, language, or personal belief. This sub-clause carries a minimum of seven years extending to life. Advocates handling mob violence or communal incident matters registered after 1 July 2024 should plead this sub-clause specifically where the facts attract it.

Cheating — IPC 420 → BNS 318

IPC Section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) maps to BNS Section 318. The quantum — imprisonment up to seven years and a fine — is preserved. In economic offence matters, particularly those running alongside ED or CBI proceedings, charge sheets covering conduct that straddles the transition date may reference both IPC 420 and BNS 318 for different periods of the alleged offence. Pleadings should be precise about which provision governs which acts.

Rape — IPC 376 → BNS 64

IPC Section 376 is now BNS Section 64. The minimum sentence of ten years rigorous imprisonment extending to life is retained, as are aggravated categories — gang rape, rape of minors, rape by persons in authority — preserved as separate sub-sections. The definition of consent codified in Section 375 IPC has been reproduced with a clarified explanation on the absence of physical resistance.

Where the accused also faces charges under POCSO, the interplay requires careful pleading. POCSO has not been repealed or renumbered and continues as a special Act; the BNS applies where POCSO is silent or where the accused falls outside POCSO's specific provisions.

Cruelty by Husband or Relatives — IPC 498A → BNS 85

IPC Section 498A, one of the most frequently invoked provisions in matrimonial criminal matters, corresponds to BNS Section 85. The substantive definition — cruelty by a husband or his relatives, whether physical, mental, or coercive — is preserved without material alteration. Punishment remains up to three years with a fine.

A procedural caveat: under the IPC regime, 498A was cognisable, non-bailable, and non-compoundable. The BNSS revisits compoundability and bail conditions for several offences. Verify the current Schedule classification under the BNSS for BNS 85 rather than carrying forward the CrPC-era classification by assumption.

Assault or Criminal Force to Outrage Modesty — IPC 354 → BNS 74

IPC Section 354 maps to BNS Section 74. The minimum sentence of one year and maximum of five years is preserved, with an explicit fine. The BNS has reorganised the offences relating to sexual harassment and stalking (formerly Sections 354A, 354B, 354C, 354D IPC) into adjacent BNS provisions; verify the specific sub-conduct alleged so the correct BNS provision is pleaded.

For matters registered under IPC 354 before 1 July 2024, the IPC provision continues to govern. Courts will not apply BNS 74 retrospectively to conduct that preceded commencement.

Omission to Assist Public Servant — IPC 187 → BNS 222

IPC Section 187 addressed omission to assist a public servant when bound by law to do so. The corresponding provision is BNS Section 222. Standalone prosecutions are uncommon, but the section regularly appears where a private person is alleged to have obstructed or failed to assist police during an arrest or investigation. When appearing for accused persons charged alongside public-servant-related offences, confirm whether BNS 222 has been added to the charge sheet.

Transition Cases: Which Law Applies and When

The governing principle is settled: substantive criminal law is not retrospective unless it operates to the benefit of the accused. Conduct that occurred before 1 July 2024 is prosecuted under the IPC, regardless of when the FIR is registered or the charge sheet is filed. An FIR registered on 15 July 2024 for an offence alleged to have been committed on 20 June 2024 should carry IPC section numbers, not BNS sections.

Where the FIR alleges a continuing offence — criminal conspiracy is the common example — and the conduct straddles commencement, the applicable law for each distinct act has to be identified separately. Courts have begun engaging with these questions; the jurisprudence is still forming.

Bail pleadings are where this causes the most immediate difficulty. A bail application for an accused arrested in August 2024 for an IPC 302 offence (conduct in May 2024) must reference CrPC 437 or 438 for bail jurisdiction, not BNSS 480 or 482. The LegalInk bail application drafting tool lets you specify the applicable procedural code at the intake stage, so the generated draft consistently cites the correct statutory provisions throughout.

For new matters — conduct post-1 July 2024 — bail applications must cite BNSS 482 for anticipatory bail (formerly CrPC 438) and BNSS 483 for High Court bail (formerly CrPC 439). The bail drafting tool handles both regimes with a single selector.

Practical Checklist for Criminal Docket Management

Managing a criminal practice through the transition calls for a clear internal protocol. The decision points worth building into any matter-intake workflow are:

• Date of alleged conduct: determines whether the IPC or BNS applies as substantive law.
• Date of FIR registration: determines the procedural code (CrPC or BNSS) and the evidentiary statute (IEA or BSA).
• Nature of the offence: verify whether the BNS has materially altered the provision (as with the mob violence sub-clause in BNS 103) or merely renumbered it.
• Bail classification: do not assume that bailable/non-bailable and compoundable/non-compoundable classifications under the CrPC schedules have been reproduced identically in the BNSS schedules.
• Charge sheet pleading: where the prosecution mixes IPC and BNS sections for the same date of conduct, that mismatch is a ground worth raising in the appropriate application.

For practices managing compliance obligations alongside criminal matters — in-house teams and advocates advising regulated entities — the LegalInk compliance framework includes a tracker reflecting BNS/BNSS commencement and its downstream effect on sector-specific statutes that cross-reference the IPC.

A Note on Provisions Not Covered Here

This post addresses the six sections most commonly encountered in general criminal practice. The BNS runs to 358 sections, and the mapping is not a simple arithmetic shift — some IPC provisions have been split, some merged, and some new offences have no IPC antecedent. Where a provision is not addressed in verified mapping resources, work from a drafting tool that flags the applicable provision rather than inferring from the IPC numbering. Guessing a BNS section in a pleading is categorically worse than acknowledging uncertainty.

The drafting environment at legalink.co.in flags BNS sections that remain under active interpretive development, so advocates are not working from outdated or unverified provision numbers.

Why This Matters

The IPC governed Indian criminal law for over 160 years; its section numbers were muscle memory for most practitioners. The BNS-IPC mapping problem will not resolve itself through familiarity alone. It requires document-level precision on every criminal brief, bail application, and revision petition filed during the transition period. Getting the numbers right is a baseline professional obligation, but navigating the substantive shifts — particularly BNS 103's mob violence clause and the revised BNSS bail classification schedules — requires reading the new statutes closely rather than substituting numbers. Use this mapping as a working reference, maintain a transition-period protocol in your practice, and verify the BNS text directly whenever a provision falls outside the sections covered here.

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