Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) is India’s primary criminal code. It came into force on 1 July 2024, replacing the colonial-era Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC), which had governed criminal offences in India for over 160 years. The BNS is one of three criminal-law statutes overhauled in 2023 — alongside the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (which replaced the CrPC) and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (which replaced the Indian Evidence Act).

The act runs to roughly 358 sections, organised into 20 chapters. While the substantive structure largely mirrors the IPC, the BNS reorganises offences, introduces community service as a form of punishment, codifies new offences (such as terrorism and organised crime) and removes archaic categories that had fallen out of use. Where a BNS section has a direct IPC ancestor, the corresponding IPC section is noted on the section page.

This page indexes the full text of every BNS section, sourced and kept current with official notifications. Use the search above to find a section by keyword (e.g. “rape”, “abetment”) or by section number. Use the IPC converter if you’re translating an older IPC reference into its BNS equivalent.