Section 261 punishes a public servant who is legally bound to keep in confinement a person charged with or convicted of an offence, or lawfully committed to custody, and who negligently allows that person to escape. The punishment is simple imprisonment for up to two years, or fine, or both. It corresponds to IPC Section 223, and the words of the two sections are the same.
Verified against the National Crime Records Bureau’s official BNS–IPC concordance (Sankalan Portal) and compared word by word with the bare text of both Acts. Section 261 is marked Exact correspondence — it maps directly onto one section of the old Indian Penal Code, 1860, with no change in wording or punishment:
| BNS 261 | Covers | IPC, 1860 equivalent | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| 261 | Escape from confinement or custody negligently suffered by public servant | S.223 “Escape from confinement or custody negligently suffered by public servant” | Exact |
A systematic word-by-word comparison of BNS Section 261 with IPC Section 223, including a check against the printed IPC pages where a page break falls inside the section, found no difference in the operative words. Both sections name the same person (a public servant legally bound as such public servant to keep in confinement any person charged with or convicted of any offence or lawfully committed to custody), the same act (negligently suffers such person to escape from confinement) and the same punishment (simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or fine, or both). The IPC copy shows amendment-footnote markers around the words “or lawfully committed to custody”, which are not part of the words compared, and the IPC prints the section’s heading in-line as the opening words of the section whereas the BNS prints it in the margin; the heading reads the same in both Acts.
Whoever, being a public servant legally bound as such public servant to keep in confinement any person charged with or convicted of any offence or lawfully committed to custody, negligently suffers such person to escape from confinement, shall be punished with simple imprisonment 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.
Section 261 has one operative rule. It applies to a public servant who is “legally bound as such public servant to keep in confinement” a person of one of three kinds, joined by “or”: a person charged with any offence, a person convicted of any offence, or a person lawfully committed to custody. If that public servant “negligently suffers such person to escape from confinement”, he is punishable under the section. Section 2(28) of the Sanhita lists the descriptions of persons who are public servants. Section 2(15) says that a person is said to be “legally bound to do” whatever it is illegal in him to omit. Where a particular duty to keep a person in confinement comes from is a question of the law or order that imposes it; Section 261 does not list the sources.
The mental element is negligence, not intention. The Sanhita does not define “negligently” in Section 2; in ordinary usage, it describes a failure to take the care that would ordinarily be expected, and this page does not go further than that. The word “suffers” is not defined either; in ordinary usage, to “suffer” an escape is to allow it. The act punished is allowing the person to “escape from confinement”. A negligent failure to apprehend a person who is not in confinement is not what those words describe.
Section 261 should be read beside Sections 259 and 260, which cover the same public servant’s intentional omission to apprehend, intentional sufferance of escape and intentional aid in escape, and beside Section 264. Section 264 applies to a public servant legally bound to apprehend, or to keep in confinement, any person “in any case not provided for in section 259, section 260 or section 261”, and its clause (b) prescribes simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or fine, or both, where the omission or sufferance of escape is negligent. A case that is provided for in Section 261 is therefore outside Section 264 on the words of Section 264 itself.
The punishment is simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or fine, or both. Under Section 4(c), imprisonment is of two descriptions, rigorous (that is, with hard labour) and simple, and this section provides only for simple imprisonment. The words “or with fine, or with both” mean that the sentence may be imprisonment alone, fine alone, or both. The section states no sum for the fine, so Section 8(1) applies: where no sum is expressed to which a fine may extend, the amount of fine is unlimited, but shall not be excessive.
The BNSS First Schedule lists Section 261 as non-cognizable and bailable, triable by any Magistrate. Under BNSS Section 2(1)(o), a non-cognizable offence is one for which a police officer has no authority to arrest without warrant, and under BNSS Section 174(2) no police officer shall investigate a non-cognizable case without the order of a Magistrate having power to try such case or commit the case for trial. The First Schedule lists clauses (b) and (c) of Section 259 and all three clauses of Section 260 as cognizable, so the negligent form in Section 261 is classified differently from those intentional forms. Because the offence is bailable, BNSS Section 478(1) applies: a person accused of a bailable offence who is arrested or detained without warrant, or who appears or is brought before a Court, and is prepared to give bail, “shall be released on bail”. The offence appears in neither compounding table of BNSS Section 359, so it is not compoundable.
Section 259 requires that the public servant act intentionally (omitting to apprehend, suffering an escape, or aiding an escape). Section 261 covers a negligent sufferance of an escape from confinement by a public servant legally bound to keep the person in confinement, and it carries simple imprisonment for up to two years, or fine, or both.
Section 264 applies to omission to apprehend, or sufferance of escape, “in any case not provided for in section 259, section 260 or section 261”. A negligent escape from confinement that falls within Section 261’s words is a case provided for in Section 261, so it is outside Section 264.
Yes on its words. The punishment is “simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both”, so the sentence may be imprisonment alone, fine alone, or both. No sum is stated for the fine, so Section 8(1) applies: the amount is unlimited, but shall not be excessive.
Under the BNSS First Schedule it is non-cognizable and bailable, triable by any Magistrate. Under BNSS Section 2(1)(o) a police officer has no authority to arrest without warrant in a non-cognizable case, and BNSS Section 174(2) says no police officer shall investigate a non-cognizable case without the order of a Magistrate having power to try it or commit it for trial. For a bailable offence BNSS Section 478 says the person “shall be released on bail” if prepared to give bail. The offence is not listed in either compounding table of BNSS Section 359.
A word-by-word comparison found no difference in the operative words: the ingredients and the punishment are the same. Apart from the section number, the only difference in the printed texts is that the IPC prints the heading in-line as the opening words of the section, while the BNS prints it in the margin.