Section 118 punishes voluntarily causing hurt, or voluntarily causing grievous hurt, using specified dangerous means — instruments for shooting, stabbing or cutting, fire or heated substances, poison or corrosive substances, explosives, deleterious substances, or animals — with higher punishment than the ordinary hurt offences.
Verified against the National Crime Records Bureau's official BNS–IPC concordance (Sankalan Portal), which flags Section 118 overall as containing a change, mapping sub-section (1) to old IPC Section 324 and sub-section (2) to old IPC Section 326, and cross-checked directly against the bare text of both provisions.
| BNS section | IPC, 1860 equivalent | Category |
|---|---|---|
| 118(1) | 324 | Substantively changed |
| 118(2) | 326 | Substantively changed |
Comparing the texts word for word: sub-section (1)'s list of dangerous means is unchanged from old IPC Section 324, but the fine has gone from unspecified/uncapped under the old IPC (a bare "fine") to an explicit ceiling of twenty thousand rupees under this section. Sub-section (2)'s list of means is likewise unchanged from old IPC Section 326, but this section adds a new minimum term of one year for the determinate-imprisonment alternative to life imprisonment, where the old IPC set no minimum for that alternative. Both sub-sections' internal cross-references have also been renumbered from old IPC Sections 334 and 335 to the BNS's own Section 122(1) and 122(2) respectively, addressing the same underlying provocation exceptions rather than new ones.
| Sub-section | Conduct | Punishment | Cognizable / Bailable / Court |
|---|---|---|---|
| (1) | Voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means | Imprisonment for 3 years, or fine of ₹20,000, or both | Cognizable, Non-bailable, Any Magistrate |
| (2) | Voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means (except as provided in Section 122(2)) | Imprisonment for life, or imprisonment of not less than 1 year but which may extend to 10 years, and fine | Cognizable, Non-bailable, Magistrate of the first class |
(1) Whoever, except in the case provided for by sub-section (1) of section 122, voluntarily causes hurt by means of any instrument for shooting, stabbing or cutting, or any instrument which, used as a weapon of offence, is likely to cause death, or by means of fire or any heated substance, or by means of any poison or any corrosive substance, or by means of any explosive substance, or by means of any substance which it is deleterious to the human body to inhale, to swallow, or to receive into the blood, or by means of any animal, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine which may extend to twenty thousand rupees, or with both.
(2) Whoever, except in the case provided for by sub-section (2) of section 122, voluntarily causes grievous hurt by any means referred to in sub-section (1), shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which shall not be less than one year but which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.
Source: Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (Act No. 45 of 2023), as published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary.
This sub-section raises the punishment for voluntarily causing hurt where the means used are from a specified dangerous category — cutting or shooting instruments, fire, poison, corrosive substances, explosives, deleterious substances, or animals — regardless of whether the resulting hurt itself is severe.
This sub-section applies the same dangerous-means list to grievous hurt, carrying a substantially higher punishment: imprisonment for life, or a determinate term of one to ten years, and fine.
These judgment(s) relate to Section 118 as a whole rather than to one specific sub-section, and so are presented together here rather than alongside a particular clause above.
The appellants, police officials, argued that a bamboo lathi and a wooden batten could not qualify as a “weapon of offence... likely to cause death” under this section, since neither is an inherently dangerous instrument like a knife or firearm. The Supreme Court rejected that argument: an ordinary object is not excluded from this section merely because it is not inherently deadly. Whether it counts as a weapon of offence likely to cause death turns on how it was actually used — the force, manner, and circumstances of the assault — not on the object's own classification.
Currency check: decided February 2021; no overruling found in this review.
This case is not about the elements of the offence but about its compoundability. The appellant's conviction under this section (old Section 326 IPC) had already been upheld and his Special Leave Petition dismissed. He later reached a compromise with the complainant — including settling a related property dispute — and sought to have the offence compounded, even though this section is not compoundable under the ordinary law. The Supreme Court, invoking its special Article 142 power to do complete justice, gave effect to the compromise in these exceptional circumstances: it did not set aside the conviction, but reduced the sentence to time already served. This illustrates that even a non-compoundable offence under this section can, in rare and genuine cases of full settlement, still see its practical consequences resolved by compromise — through the Supreme Court's inherent power, not through the ordinary compounding procedure under BNSS Section 359.
Currency check: decided January 2025; no overruling found in this review.
A man poured acid on another over an old enmity, leaving him with extensive burns from his head to his thigh and in hospital for nearly two months. Because the attack happened in 1997 — years before Parliament created dedicated acid-attack offences in 2013 — he was tried and convicted under this general grievous-hurt-by-dangerous-means provision instead. On appeal, the Supreme Court confirmed that acid plainly counts as a “corrosive substance” for the purposes of this section, and that the victim's extensive burns and lengthy hospital stay were more than enough to meet the section's injury threshold. The Court did note, in passing, that an acid attack committed today would instead fall under the specific, more severe acid-attack provisions Parliament later added — but for an older case like this one, this general provision was the correct charge, and acid is squarely covered by it.
Currency check: decided May 2019; no overruling found in this review.
Sub-section (1) adds an explicit fine ceiling of twenty thousand rupees, where the old IPC Section 324 left the fine uncapped. Sub-section (2) adds a new minimum term of one year for the determinate-imprisonment alternative, where old IPC Section 326 set no minimum. The list of dangerous means itself is unchanged in both sub-sections.
Sub-section (1) applies based on the dangerous means used, not the severity of the resulting hurt. Even a comparatively minor injury caused by a listed dangerous means falls under this section rather than the ordinary hurt provision.
No. Per the BNSS First Schedule, both sub-sections are cognizable and non-bailable; sub-section (1) is triable by any Magistrate, and sub-section (2) by a Magistrate of the first class.