Table of Contents
Indian Penal Code 1860
The official criminal code of India is known as the Indian Penal Code (IPC). It is a thorough code that aims to cover all important areas of criminal law. The first law commission of India, headed by Thomas Babington Macaulay and constituted in 1834 as a result of the Charter Act of 1833, made suggestions that served as the basis for the creation of the code. In India, under British rule, it became law in 1862. But, it did not immediately apply in the Princely states, which until the 1940s had their own courts and legal systems. Since then, the Code has undergone numerous revisions and now includes more penal laws.
Indian Penal Code
The Indian Penal Code was passed down to India and Pakistan after the British Indian Empire was divided, where it now exists independently as the Pakistan Penal Code. The code remained in effect in Bangladesh even after it gained its independence from Pakistan. The Straits Settlements (now a part of Malaysia), Colonial Burma, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Singapore, and Brunei were also British colonial administrations that adopted the Code, and those nations’ penal codes are still based on it today.
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Indian Penal Code History
- The First Law Commission, presided over by Thomas Babington Macaulay, drafted the Indian Criminal Code in 1834, and it was presented to the Governor-General of India Council the following year.
- A simplified codification of English law at the period served as the foundation for aspects that were also based on the Napoleonic Code and Edward Livingston’s Louisiana Civil Code, both of which were published in 1825.
- The Indian Criminal Code’s initial final draught was sent to the Governor-General of India in Council in 1837, but it was later altered once more.
- The Code was finished in 1850 and delivered to the Legislative Council in 1856, but it wasn’t until a generation later, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, that it was codified into British India’s laws.
- The document was then thoroughly revised by members of the Legislative Council, including Barnes Peacock, who would later become the first Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, and the future puisne judges of the Calcutta High Court, and it was signed into law on October 6, 1860.
- The Code went into effect on January 1st, 1862. Macaulay passed away before the end of 1859, thus he did not live to see the criminal law he created go into effect.
The Ranbir Criminal Code was replaced by the new law when it went into effect in Jammu and Kashmir on October 31, 2019, thanks to the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.
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Indian Penal Code Structure
The Indian Penal Code (IPC) is divided into 23 chapters and contains a total of 511 sections. The structure of the IPC is as follows:
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 1: Introduction
Contains sections related to the title and extent of the code
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 2: General Explanations
Contains definitions of various terms used in the code
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 3: Punishments
Contains sections that define the different types of punishments that can be awarded for offences
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 4: General Exceptions
Contains sections that list the circumstances under which an act that would otherwise be considered an offence is not punishable
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 5: Abetment
Contains sections that define and prescribe punishment for the offence of abetment
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 6: Criminal Conspiracy
Contains sections that define and prescribe punishment for the offence of criminal conspiracy
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 7: Offences Against the State
Contains sections that deal with offences such as waging war against the Government of India, sedition, and related offences
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 8: Offences Against Public Tranquility
Contains sections that deal with offences such as rioting, unlawful assembly, and related offences
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 9: Offences Against Public Servants
Contains sections that deal with offences such as obstructing a public servant in discharge of his/her duties, assaulting or using criminal force against a public servant, and related offences
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 10: Contempts of the Lawful Authority of Public Servants
Contains sections that define and prescribe punishment for the offence of contempt of the lawful authority of public servants
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 11: False Evidence and Offences Against Public Justice
Contains sections that deal with offences such as giving false evidence, fabricating false evidence, and related offences
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 12: Offences Relating to Coin and Government Stamps
Contains sections that deal with offences such as counterfeiting coins and government stamps, possessing counterfeit coins, and related offences
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 13: Offences Relating to Weights and Measures
Contains sections that deal with offences such as using false weights and measures, making or selling false weights and measures, and related offences
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 14: Offences affecting public peace and tranquillity
Deals with offenses relating to kidnapping, abduction, and wrongful confinement.
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 15: Offenses relating to religion
Deals with offenses relating to the human body, including murder, culpable homicide, and causing hurt.
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 16: Offenses affecting the human body
Deals with offenses relating to marriage, including bigamy and cruelty towards a married woman.
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 17: Offenses against Property
Deals with offenses relating to defamation, including libel and slander.
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 18: Offences relating to hurt and grievous hurt
Deals with offenses relating to criminal conspiracy.
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 19: Offences relating to wrongful restraint and wrongful confinement
Deals with offenses relating to offenses related to the rights of property, including theft, extortion, robbery, and criminal misappropriation.
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 20: Offences relating to kidnapping and abduction
Deals with offenses relating to mischief, including causing damage to property and other forms of vandalism.
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 21: Offences relating to wrongful confinement
Deals with offenses relating to cheating, including fraud, forgery, and cheating at games.
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 22: Offences against public servants
Deals with offenses relating to attempts to commit offenses, including attempts to commit any of the offenses listed in the previous chapters.
Indian Penal Code: Chapter 23: Offences relating to the human body
Deals with offenses not otherwise provided for in the code.
Indian Penal Code Objective
This Act’s goal is to give India a comprehensive penal law. The Act does not repeal the criminal laws that were in place in India at the time it came into effect, despite this not being its primary goal. This was done because not all offences are covered by the Code, and it was likely that some offences that were not meant to be exempt from punishment could still have been included but were not.
Despite the fact that this Code codifies the entirety of the applicable legal framework and is exhaustive with regard to the subjects it declares to be governed by the law, numerous additional criminal legislation controlling a variety of offences have been enacted in addition to the code.
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Indian Penal Code: Criminal Justice Reforms
The Malimath Committee delivered its findings in 2003 and made several comprehensive recommendations for criminal justice reform, including the separation of investigation and prosecution (akin to the CPS in the UK). The report’s main argument was that a change from an adversarial to an inquisitorial criminal justice system, modelled after Continental European systems, was needed.
Indian Penal Code Amendments
he Indian Penal Code (IPC) is regularly updated to keep up with changing times and societal norms. The most recent major amendments to the IPC were made in 2013, when the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act was passed in response to the gang rape and murder of a young woman in Delhi.
Some of the key changes made by the 2013 amendments to the IPC include:
- Introduction of new offenses: The amendments introduced new offenses, such as acid attacks, stalking, and voyeurism, and increased the punishment for sexual offenses.
- Definition of rape: The definition of rape was expanded to include not only vaginal penetration but also oral and anal penetration, and penetration by objects.
- Increased punishment: The amendments increased the minimum punishment for rape from seven years to ten years, and introduced the possibility of life imprisonment or the death penalty for certain types of rape.
- Gender-neutral language: The amendments replaced the term “rape victim” with “rape survivor,” and made other changes to ensure that the language used in the IPC is gender-neutral.
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