Section 132 punishes assaulting or using criminal force against a public servant acting in the execution of duty, or to prevent or deter them from discharging that duty, or in consequence of duty already discharged, with imprisonment up to two years, or fine, or both.
Verified against the National Crime Records Bureau's official BNS–IPC concordance (Sankalan Portal), which maps Section 132 to old IPC Section 353, and cross-checked directly against the bare text of both Acts.
| BNS section | IPC, 1860 equivalent | Category |
|---|---|---|
| 132 | 353 | Exact |
Comparing the two texts word for word, Section 132 is reproduced without any change from old IPC Section 353, including the offence description and the punishment of imprisonment up to two years, or fine, or both.
Whoever assaults or uses criminal force to any person being a public servant in the execution of his duty as such public servant, or with intent to prevent or deter that person from discharging his duty as such public servant, or in consequence of anything done or attempted to be done by such person in the lawful discharge of his duty as such public servant, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.
Source: Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (Act No. 45 of 2023), as published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary.
This section raises the punishment for assault or criminal force well above the general Section 131 level, specifically because the target is a public servant connected to their official duty. Three situations are covered: assault or force used while the public servant is actually executing their duty; assault or force intended to prevent or deter them from discharging that duty (typically before the act); and assault or force used afterward, in consequence of something the public servant did or attempted to do in the lawful discharge of their duty (typically retaliatory).
These judgment(s) relate to Section 132 as a whole rather than to one specific sub-section, and so are presented together here rather than alongside a particular clause above.
A Patwari accused of demanding a bribe was caught in a police trap; when officials moved to apprehend him, there was jostling and pushing as he tried to pull free and escape their grip. He was convicted under old IPC Section 353 (assault or criminal force to a public servant discharging duty) for this scuffle. The Supreme Court set the conviction aside under this specific charge, holding that mere jostling and pushing while trying to wriggle out of an arrest, without any further proof of intent to assault or use force against the officials as such, does not satisfy the ingredients of the offence — there must be an actual assault or use of criminal force connected to the public servant's duty, not just incidental physical contact from a person trying to get away.
Currency check: decided 12 August 2024; no overruling or contrary larger-bench ruling found as of the date this page was last reviewed.
A sales-tax officer paid a surprise inspection visit to a shopkeeper's premises and began examining two sets of account books. The shopkeeper snatched the books back out of the officer's hands, and when the officer's peon tried to recover them, the shopkeeper resisted that too. He was convicted under old IPC Section 353. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction, holding that physically snatching the books — and the jerk to the officer's hands this necessarily caused — was itself a use of "force" within the ordinary meaning used by this section, and that force used against a public servant lawfully carrying out an inspection, done to stop them from doing so, is exactly what this offence is meant to punish.
Currency check: decided 1962; no overruling found as of the date this page was last reviewed, though re-check given the age of this authority.
No. What matters is that the person is a public servant acting in, about to be deterred from, or acted upon in consequence of, the execution of their official duty — not whether they wear a uniform.
The section covers assault "in consequence of" something done or attempted in the lawful discharge of duty, without a fixed time limit, though the causal connection to the duty performed still has to be shown.
Per the Quick Reference above, no — it is cognizable and non-bailable, triable by any Magistrate.