The Indian Penal Code (IPC) is the official
criminal code
A criminal code (or penal code) is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might ...
of
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. It is a comprehensive code intended to cover all substantive aspects of
criminal law
Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law i ...
. The code was drafted on the recommendations of first law commission of India established in 1834 under the
Charter Act of 1833
The Government of India Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will 4 c 85), or the Charter Act 1833, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, later retitled as the Saint Helena Act 1833. It extended the royal charter granted to the East India Company for an ...
under the chairmanship of
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, (; 25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was a British historian and Whig politician, who served as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and as the Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1 ...
.
It came into force in
British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
during the early
British Raj
The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent;
*
* it is also called Crown rule in India,
*
*
*
*
or Direct rule in India,
* Quote: "Mill, who was himsel ...
period in 1862. However, it did not apply automatically in the
Princely states
A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, subject to ...
, which had their own courts and
legal system
The contemporary national legal systems are generally based on one of four basic systems: civil law, common law, statutory law, religious law or combinations of these. However, the legal system of each country is shaped by its unique history an ...
s until the 1940s. The Code has since been amended several times and is now supplemented by other criminal provisions.
After the
partition of the British Indian Empire, the Indian Penal Code was inherited by India and Pakistan, where it continues independently as the
Pakistan Penal Code
The Pakistan Penal Code (; ), abbreviated as PPC, is a penal code for all offences charged in Pakistan. It was originally prepared by Lord Macaulay with a great consultation in 1860 on the behalf of the Government of India as the Indian Penal ...
. After the independece of
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
from Pakistan, the code
continued in force there. The Code was also adopted by the British colonial authorities in
Colonial Burma
( Burmese)
, conventional_long_name = Colony of Burma
, common_name = Burma
, era = Colonial era
, event_start = First Anglo-Burmese War
, year_start = 1824
, date_start = ...
,
Ceylon
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
(modern Sri Lanka), the
Straits Settlements
The Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia. Headquartered in Singapore for more than a century, it was originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Comp ...
(now part of Malaysia),
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
and
Brunei
Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely sur ...
, and remains the basis of the criminal codes in those countries.
History
The draft of the Indian Penal Code was prepared by the First Law Commission, chaired by
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, (; 25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was a British historian and Whig politician, who served as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and as the Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1 ...
in 1834 and was submitted to Governor-General of India Council in 1835. Based on a simplified codification of the law of England at the time, elements were also derived from the
Napoleonic Code and from
Edward Livingston
Edward Livingston (May 28, 1764May 23, 1836) was an American jurist and statesman. He was an influential figure in the drafting of the Louisiana Civil Code of 1825, a civil code based largely on the Napoleonic Code. Livingston represented both ...
's
Louisiana Civil Code
The ''Louisiana Civil Code'' (LCC) constitutes the core of private law in the State of Louisiana. The Louisiana Civil Code is based on a more diverse set of sources than the laws of the other 49 states of the United States: substantive law between ...
of 1825. The first final draft of the Indian Penal Code was submitted to the Governor-General of India in Council in 1837, but the draft was again revised. The drafting was completed in 1850 and the Code was presented to the Legislative Council in 1856, but it did not take its place on the statute book of British India until a generation later, following the
Indian Rebellion of 1857
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...
. The draft then underwent a very careful revision at the hands of
Barnes Peacock
Sir George Barnes Peacock (1805 – 3 December 1890) was an English judge who served as the first Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court in India and the final Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William.
Peacock was th ...
, who later became the first Chief Justice of the
Calcutta High Court
The Calcutta High Court is the oldest High Court in India. It is located in B.B.D. Bagh, Kolkata, West Bengal. It has jurisdiction over the state of West Bengal and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The High Court buildi ...
, and the future
puisne judges of the Calcutta High Court, who were members of the Legislative Council, and was passed into law on 6 October 1860. The Code came into operation on 1 January 1862. Macaulay did not survive to see the penal code he wrote come into force, having died near the end of 1859. The code came into force in Jammu and Kashmir on 31 October 2019, by virtue of the
Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019
The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 is an act of the parliament of India containing provisions to reconstitute the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir into two Indian-administered union territories (UTs) called Jammu and ...
, and replaced the state's
Ranbir Penal Code
Jammu and Kashmir State Ranbir Penal Code or RPC was the main criminal code applicable in the erstwhile Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian Penal Code, applicable elsewhere in India, was not applicable here under Article 370 of the Con ...
.
Objective
The objective of this Act is to provide a general
penal code
A criminal code (or penal code) is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might ...
for India. Though not the initial objective, the Act does not repeal the penal laws which were in force at the time of coming into force in India. This was done because the Code does not contain all the offences and it was possible that some offences might have still been left out of the Code, which were not intended to be exempted from penal consequences. Though this Code consolidates the whole of the law on the subject and is exhaustive on the matters in respect of which it declares the law, many more penal statutes governing various offences have been created in addition to the code.
Structure
The Indian Penal Code of 1860, sub-divided into 23 chapters, comprises 511 sections. The Code starts with an introduction, provides explanations and exceptions used in it, and covers a wide range of offences. The Outline is presented in the following table:
A detailed list of all IPC laws which include above is here.
''Whoever, voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment of life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.''
''Penetration is sufficient to constitute the carnal intercourse necessary to the offence described in this section.''
*
Section 377
Section 377 of the British colonial penal code criminalized all sexual acts "against the order of nature". The law was used to prosecute people engaging in oral and anal sex along with homosexual activity. The penal code remains in many former col ...
The Delhi High Court on 2 July 2009 gave a liberal interpretation to this section and laid down that this section can not be used to punish an act of consensual sexual intercourse between two same sex individuals.
* On 11 December 2013, Supreme Court of India over-ruled the judgment given by Delhi High court in 2009 and clarified that "Section 377, which holds same-sex relations unnatural, does not suffer from unconstitutionality". The Bench said: "We hold that Section 377 does not suffer from ... unconstitutionality and the declaration made by the Division Bench of the High Court is legally unsustainable." It, however, said: "Notwithstanding this verdict, the competent legislature shall be free to consider the desirability and propriety of deleting Section 377 from the statute book or amend it as per the suggestion made by Attorney-General G.E. Vahanvati."
* On 8 January 2018, the Supreme Court agreed to reconsider its 2013 decision and after much deliberation agreed to decriminalise the parts of Section 377 that criminalised same sex relations on 6 September 2018. The judgement of Suresh Kumar Koushal v. Naz Foundation is overruled.
Attempt to Commit Suicide - Section 309
The
Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code
Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code criminalises attempted suicide as well as suicide assistance.
Section 309 states:
: Whoever attempts to commit suicide and does any act towards the commission of such offence, shall be punished with simple i ...
deals with suicide attempts, whereby attempting to commit suicide is punishable with an imprisonment up to one year. Considering long-standing demand and recommendations of the
Law Commission of India
Law Commission of India is an executive body established by an order of the Government of India. The Commission's function is to research and advise the Government of India on legal reform, and is composed of legal experts, and headed by a reti ...
, which has repeatedly endorsed the repeal of this section, the
Government of India
The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...
in December 2014 decided to decriminalise attempts to commit suicide by dropping Section 309 of the IPC from the statute book. In February 2015, the Legislative Department of the
Ministry of Law and Justice was asked by the Government to prepare a draft Amendment Bill in this regard.
In an August 2015 ruling, the
Rajasthan High Court
The Rajasthan High Court is the High Court of the state of Rajasthan. It was established on 29 August 1949 under the ''Rajasthan High Court Ordinance, 1949''.
The seat of the court is at Jodhpur. The court has a sanctioned judge strength of 50. ...
made the
Jain
Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...
practice of undertaking voluntary death by fasting at the end of a person's life, known as
Santhara
''Sallekhana'' (IAST: ), also known as ''samlehna'', ''santhara'', ''samadhi-marana'' or ''sanyasana-marana'', is a supplementary vow to the ethical code of conduct of Jainism. It is the religious practice of voluntarily fasting to death by ...
, punishable under sections 306 and 309 of the IPC. This led to some controversy, with some sections of the Jain community urging the Prime Minister to move the
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
against the order. On 31 August 2015, the Supreme Court admitted the petition by Akhil Bharat Varshiya Digambar Jain Parishad and granted leave. It stayed the decision of the High Court and lifted the ban on the practice.
In 2017 the new
Mental Healthcare Act
Mental may refer to:
* of or relating to the mind
Films
* ''Mental'' (2012 film), an Australian comedy-drama
* ''Mental'' (2016 film), a Bangladeshi romantic-action movie
* ''Mental'', a 2008 documentary by Kazuhiro Soda
* ''Mental'', a 2014 O ...
of India was signed. Section 115(1) of the act effectively decriminalised suicide, saying "anyone who attempts suicide shall be presumed, unless proved otherwise, to have severe stress and shall not be tried and punished under the said Code."
Adultery - Section 497
The
Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code has been criticised on the one hand for allegedly treating woman as the private property of her husband, and on the other hand for giving women complete protection against punishment for adultery. This section was unanimously struck down on 27 September 2018 by a five judge bench of the Supreme Court in case o
Joseph Shine v. Union of Indiaas being unconstitutional and demeaning to the dignity of women. Adultery continues to be a ground for seeking divorce in a Civil Court, but is no longer a criminal offence in India.
Death penalty
Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 121 (war against the Government of India), 132 (mutiny), 194 (false evidence to procure conviction for a capital offence), 302, 303 (murder)(303/ has been declared unconstitutional in the case of Mittu singh vs state of punjab), 305 (abetting suicide), 364A (kidnapping for ransom), 396 (banditry(Dacoity) with murder), 376A (rape), 376AB (Rape on woman under 12 years of age), 376DB (Gang rape on woman under twelve years of age), 376E (repeat offender) have death penalty as punishment. There is ongoing debate for abolishing capital punishment. Still major activists are debating on this topic.
Criminal justice reforms
In 2003, the Malimath Committee submitted its report recommending several far-reaching penal reforms including separation of investigation and prosecution (similar to the
CPS in the UK) to streamline
criminal justice
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the Rehabilitation (penology), rehabilitation of o ...
system. The essence of the report was a perceived need for shift from an adversarial to an inquisitorial criminal justice system, based on the
Continental Europe
Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous continent of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by ...
an systems.
Amendments
The Code has been amended several times.
[ ]
Acclaim
The Code is universally acknowledged as a cogently drafted code, ahead of its time. It has substantially survived for over 150 years in several jurisdictions without major amendments.
Nicholas Phillips,
Justice
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...
of
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
of United Kingdom applauded the efficacy and relevance of IPC while commemorating 150 years of IPC. Modern crimes involving technology unheard of during Macaulay's time fit easily within the Code mainly because of the broadness of the Code's drafting.
Cultural references
Some references to specific sections (called ''dafā/dafa'a'' in Hindi-Urdu, دفعہ or दफ़ा/दफ़आ) of the IPC have entered popular speech in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. For instance, con men are referred to as 420s (''chaar-sau-bees'' in Hindi-Urdu) after
Section 420
Section 420 in the Indian Penal Code deals with ''Cheating'' and ''dishonestly inducing delivery of property''. The maximum punishment which can be awarded under this section is imprisonment for a term of 7 year and fine.
Definitions
:* Chea ...
which covers cheating.
Similarly, specific reference to section 302 ("''tazīrāt-e-Hind dafā tīn-sau-do ke tehet sazā-e-maut''", "''punishment of death under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code''"), which covers the death penalty, have become part of common knowledge in the region due to repeated mentions of it in
Bollywood
Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...
movies and regional
pulp literature.
''
Dafa 302'' was also the name of a Bollywood movie released in 1975.
Similarly, ''
Shree 420
''Shree 420'' (also spelled as ''Shri 420''; ) is a 1955 Indian Hindi comedy-drama film directed and produced by Raj Kapoor from a story written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas whose use of Shree with the negative connotations of 420 caused controversy. ...
'' was the name of a 1955 Bollywood movie starring
Raj Kapoor
Raj Kapoor (pronunciation: aːd͡ʒ kəpuːɾ born Shrishti Nath Kapoor; also known as Ranbir Raj Kapoor; 14 December 1924 2 June 1988) was an Indian actor, film director and producer, who worked in Hindi cinema. He is considered one of th ...
. and ''
Chachi 420
''Chachi 420'' () is a 1997 Indian Hindi-language comedy film, co-written, produced and directed by Kamal Haasan. The film is a remake of the 1996 Tamil movie ''Avvai Shanmughi''. The film stars Haasan and Nassar (reprising their roles from the ...
'' was a Bollywood movie released in 1997 starring
Kamal Haasan
Kamal Haasan (born 7 November 1954) is an Indian actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, playback singer, television presenter and politician who works mainly in Tamil cinema and has also appeared in some Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada and Bengali l ...
.
See also
*
Courts
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance ...
*
Judiciary of India
The judiciary of India is a system of courts that interpret and apply the law in the India, Republic of India. India uses a Common law, ''common law system'', first introduced by the East India Company, British East India Company and with influe ...
*
Indian Evidence Act
The Indian Evidence Act, originally passed in India by the Imperial Legislative Council in 1872, during the British Raj, contains a set of rules and allied issues governing admissibility of evidence in the Indian courts of law.
Importance
The ...
*
Government of India
The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...
*
Law enforcement in India
Law of India, Indian law is enforced by a number of Law enforcement agency, agencies. Unlike many federation, federal nations, the constitution of India delegates the maintenance of law and order primarily to the States and union territories ...
*
Civil Procedure Code, 1908
The Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 is a procedural law related to the administration of civil proceedings in India.
The Code is divided into two parts: the first part contains 158 sections and the second part contains the First Schedule, which ...
*
Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973
In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...
*
Administrative divisions of India
The administrative divisions of India are subnational administrative units of India; they are composed of a nested hierarchy of administrative divisions.
Indian states and territories frequently use different local titles for the same level ...
*
:Sections of the Indian Penal Code
References
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
The Indian Penal Code, 1860- India Code, Government of India
{{India topics
Acts of the Parliament of India
Criminal codes
1860 in British law
1860 in law
1860 in India