IPC to BNS and CrPC to BNSS: verified section map

Two years in, the renumbering has stopped being a talking point and become an ordinary hazard of practice. Every criminal file opened this month sits on a boundary somewhere: the offence under one code, the procedure possibly under another, the precedent reported in the numbering of a repealed statute, and the opposing counsel's written submissions citing all three at once.

This is a reference piece. The mappings below come from the Bureau of Police Research and Development's correspondence tables for BNS to IPC, BNSS to CrPC and BSA to the Evidence Act, and each row was then read against the section in the bare act before it went in. Where the BPRD summary itself is loose (it is, in two places noted below) the Act wins.

Start with the one that can wreck a filing.

The Section 482 problem

For four decades "a 482 petition" meant one thing to every criminal practitioner in India: a petition invoking the High Court's inherent powers, usually to quash. Under the BNSS, Section 482 is anticipatory bail. The two applications go to different benches, follow different procedure and seek different relief, and the phrase that used to distinguish them no longer does. The same thing happens in reverse with 438: what was anticipatory bail is now the revision-records provision that used to be CrPC 397.

Until the habit dies, name the code. "Section 482 BNSS" and "Section 482 CrPC" are both intelligible; "Section 482" is not. (The bail provisions, with a complete Section 480 application, are in our BNSS bail piece.)

Which code applies to your matter

Two separate questions, and running them together is the commonest error in writing on this subject.

The offence: date of the offence governs

An offence committed before 1 July 2024 is charged under the IPC, even if the FIR is registered afterwards. That follows from BNS Section 358 (repeal and savings), Section 6 of the General Clauses Act, and Article 20(1) of the Constitution, which forbids retrospective criminal liability.

The Rajasthan High Court put it directly in Vijay Sharma v. State of Rajasthan (Arun Monga J., 21 August 2024): if an FIR is registered on or after 1 July 2024 for an offence committed before that date, it has to be registered under the provisions of the IPC.

This limb is not seriously disputed. Date of offence, not date of FIR, not date of filing.

The procedure: genuinely unsettled

BNSS Section 531(2)(a) saves only what was pending on 1 July 2024:

"if, immediately before the date on which this Sanhita comes into force, there is any appeal, application, trial, inquiry or investigation pending, then, such appeal, application, trial, inquiry or investigation shall be disposed of, continued, held or made, as the case may be, in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973…"

What that means for a step taken after 1 July 2024 in a matter arising from an older offence has divided the High Courts.

No Supreme Court judgment settles this. Treat the position in your own High Court as the operative one, and do not assume a decision from another High Court travels.

There is a wrinkle worth knowing. The evidence code's savings clause is drafted wider than the procedure code's: BSA Section 170(2) saves any pending "application, trial, inquiry, investigation, proceeding or appeal", where BNSS 531(2)(a) omits "proceeding". The two savings provisions are not coextensive, so a matter can sit on different sides of the line for evidence and for procedure.

IPC to BNS

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has 358 sections across 20 chapters. Every row below was checked against the BPRD table and then against the section text; where a section has sub-sections, the sub-section is given, because "BNS 103" and "BNS 103(1)" are not the same charge.

The provisions used most

Three traps in that table

IPC 302 is BNS 103(1), not "103". Sub-section (2) is a new offence with no IPC predecessor: murder by a group of five or more on the ground of race, caste or community, sex, place of birth, language, personal belief or any similar ground. Bare "BNS 103" is imprecise in a charge and sloppy in a pleading.

IPC 498A became two sections. The BPRD table states in terms that 498A "has been bifurcated into Sections 85 and 86." BNS 85 carries the offence; BNS 86 is headed "Cruelty defined." A pleading that cited 498A alone now needs both.

IPC 506 maps to two sub-sections. The punishment limbs are BNS 351(2) and 351(3); the definition of criminal intimidation, formerly IPC 503, is at 351(1).

The wider set

A note on 189(2). BNS 189(2) both defines membership of an unlawful assembly (IPC 142) and punishes it (IPC 143) in one sub-section; the BPRD table maps it to 142 and the Uttar Pradesh Police table to 143. Both are right.

Where the substance changed, not just the number

The BPRD table flags these as substantive, and they are the ones where reading across from an old commentary will mislead you:

• BNS 63 (ex-IPC 375): the age in Exception 2 was raised from 15 to 18.
• BNS 105 (ex-IPC 304): on the first limb (intention to cause death or such injury as is likely to cause death) a minimum of five years is now prescribed and fine is mandatory; the knowledge limb remains "may extend to ten years", with no minimum.
• BNS 104 (ex-IPC 303): imprisonment for life "which shall mean the remainder of that person's natural life" is now the alternative to death.
• BNS 304, "Snatching": an entirely new offence with no IPC predecessor.
• BNS 117: gains sub-sections with no IPC equivalent, including grievous hurt causing permanent disability or a persistent vegetative state (117(3)) and grievous hurt by a group of five or more (117(4)).

CrPC to BNSS

One of those rows carries a change worth knowing about beyond the number. Section 223 BNSS adds a proviso that did not exist in CrPC 200: no cognizance of an offence on a complaint without giving the accused an opportunity of being heard. Anyone filing private complaints, cheque dishonour matters above all, now has a pre-cognizance hearing to plan for (more on that in the Section 138 piece).

Others confirmed in the BPRD table: 106→125 · 125→144 · 135→154 · 137→156 · 148→167 · 156→175 · 157→176 · 158→177 · 159→178 · 160→179 · 190→210 · 201→224 · 203→226 · 204→227 · 207→230 · 208→231 · 209→232 · 227→250 · 228→251 · 229→252 · 235→258 · 236→259 · 237→260 · 238→261 · 239→262 · 240→263 · 241→264 · 242→265 · 265A→289 · 357→395 · 396→437 · 398→439 · 399→440 · 441A→486 · 468→514 · 481→527 · 483→529 · 484→531.

New timelines the BNSS introduced

These have no CrPC predecessor or materially changed one, and several are enforceable deadlines rather than exhortations.

Two of those rows differ from the BPRD summary, and the Act is right. The summary describes 250(1) as running from "commencement"; the section says "from the date of commitment of the case under section 232". And the summary lists POCSO sections 4, 6, 8, 10 "and 12" under 193(2); the section stops at 10. Read the section, not the summary, before you put a deadline in a diary.

The one worth putting in a diary is Section 230: the police report and documents must reach the accused free of cost within fourteen days of production or appearance, and the provision now extends the same entitlement to the victim where represented by an advocate.

Evidence Act 65B is now BSA 63, and it changed

Three changes in Section 63 that matter every time you tender an electronic record. The text is in the Gazette copy of the BSA.

The certificate goes in every time. Section 63(4) requires the certificate to be submitted with the electronic record "at each instance where it is being submitted for admission." Not once, at the outset. Each time.

Two signatures, one of them an expert. The certificate must purport to be signed by "a person in charge of the computer or communication device or the management of the relevant activities (whichever is appropriate) and an expert." Under IEA 65B only the person responsible for the device signed. This is in the enacted text, not commentary.

The format is prescribed. The Schedule sets out the certificate in two parts: Part A completed by the party (device make, model, serial number, IMEI/UIN/UID/MAC/Cloud ID as applicable, a declaration on lawful control and proper working, and the hash value with the algorithm ticked from SHA1, SHA256, MD5 or other, with the hash report enclosed), and Part B completed by the expert, repeating the particulars and the hash with name, designation and signature.

Note also BSA Section 2(1)(d), which defines "document" to include electronic and digital records, with an illustration expressly covering emails, server logs, documents on computers, laptops or smartphones, messages, websites, locational evidence and voicemail.

How this piece was checked, and why it matters

Every mapping above was read off the BPRD tables and then against the section in the Act. Two of the BPRD summary lines turned out to be wrong, as noted above, and the NCRB's table for the BSA is laid out as a two-column BSA-then-IEA list in which the row for professional communications reads "132(1)(2) | 126". Read in a hurry, or by a tool that guesses which column is which, that comes out as "IEA 126 → BSA 126". The right answer is BSA 132.

That is precisely the failure this transition invites, and precisely why a mapping you cannot trace to a source is worth nothing. If you take a section number from this piece into a filing, open the table and confirm it, as you would want your opponent to have done. The same discipline applies to case law, where the consequences of not checking are now spelled out by the Supreme Court.

What Synapse does with this

The mapping problem is a database problem, not a reasoning problem, and it does not get solved by a model being larger.

Synapse's statute library indexes both numbering systems and the correspondence between them, so a search on the section you know returns the provision that now governs, in either direction. Search 498A and you get BNS 85 and 86. Search BNSS 482 and you get anticipatory bail, with CrPC 438 alongside it and the case law decided under the old number still attached, because the provision was carried over unchanged. Every provision opens to its source text; nothing is asserted that was not retrieved.

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Mappings taken from the Bureau of Police Research and Development correspondence tables for BNS–IPC, BNSS–CrPC and BSA–IEA, read against the Acts as published in the Gazette of India on 25 December 2023, and cross-checked against the Uttar Pradesh Police comparative tables and the NCRB table for the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam. The three codes commenced on 1 July 2024 under notifications S.O. 848(E), 849(E) and 850(E) dated 23 February 2024 (Gazette of India, 24 February 2024), BNS excepting Section 106(2). The tables and cases were checked against the sources linked in the text on 28 September 2026. This article is general information, not legal advice. Verify every provision against the bare act before relying on it in a filing.