Section 265 punishes a person who intentionally resists or illegally obstructs the lawful apprehension of himself or of any other person, or who escapes or attempts to escape from lawful custody, or who rescues or attempts to rescue another person from lawful custody, but only in a case not provided for in Section 262 or 263 or in any other law. The punishment is imprisonment of up to six months, or fine, or both. Its wording and punishment are the same as IPC Section 225B, apart from the updated section numbers and a comma in the heading.
Verified against the National Crime Records Bureau’s official BNS–IPC concordance (Sankalan Portal) and cross-checked directly against the bare text of both Acts. Section 265 is classed as Exact — the concordance carries no change tag for it, it descends from one section of the old Indian Penal Code, 1860, and its wording is the same apart from the small points noted below:
| BNS 265 | Covers | IPC, 1860 equivalent | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| 265 | Resistance or obstruction to lawful apprehension, escape or rescue, in cases not otherwise provided for | S.225B “Resistance or obstruction to lawful apprehension, or escape or rescue in cases not otherwise provided for” | Exact |
A word-by-word comparison of BNS Section 265 with IPC Section 225B shows the following differences, and no others. (1) The opening words refer to other sections by number: the IPC reads “section 224 or section 225” and the BNS reads “section 262 or section 263”; the concordance pairs IPC Sections 224 and 225 with BNS Sections 262 and 263. (2) In the heading, the IPC reads “lawful apprehension, or escape or rescue”, with a comma after “apprehension”; the BNS heading reads “lawful apprehension or escape or rescue”, without it. (3) The IPC copy prints a closing square bracket after Section 225B (the bracket was opened, with an amendment footnote marker, at the start of Section 225A); the BNS text has none. The operative words, the four kinds of conduct and the punishment (imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or fine, or both) are otherwise the same in both Acts.
Whoever, in any case not provided for in section 262 or section 263 or in any other law for the time being in force, intentionally offers any resistance or illegal obstruction to the lawful apprehension of himself or of any other person, or escapes or attempts to escape from any custody in which he is lawfully detained, or rescues or attempts to rescue any other person from any custody in which that person is lawfully detained, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, 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 265 applies only “in any case not provided for in section 262 or section 263 or in any other law for the time being in force”. Within such a case, the offender must act “intentionally” and do one of three things, joined by “or”: (i) offer any resistance or illegal obstruction to the lawful apprehension of himself or of any other person; (ii) escape, or attempt to escape, from any custody in which he is lawfully detained; or (iii) rescue, or attempt to rescue, any other person from any custody in which that person is lawfully detained. The apprehension and the detention must be lawful, and an attempt to escape or to rescue is punished in the same way as the escape or the rescue itself.
Compare the words with Sections 262 and 263. Section 262 speaks of apprehension “for any offence with which he is charged or of which he has been convicted” and of custody “for any such offence”; Section 263 speaks of apprehension “for an offence” and of custody “for an offence”. Section 265 speaks of “lawful apprehension of himself or of any other person” and of “any custody in which he is lawfully detained”, without the words “for an offence”. The section does not itself list the cases that fall within it, and this page does not try to list them; what the text shows is that its description of the apprehension and of the custody is not tied to an offence, while its opening words exclude the cases provided for in Sections 262 and 263 and by any other law.
Section 2(15) defines “illegal” as applicable to everything which is an offence or which is prohibited by law, or which furnishes ground for a civil action; in this section the word stands before “obstruction” and is not attached to “resistance”. Section 2 does not define “lawful”, “apprehension”, “custody”, “resistance”, “obstruction”, “escape” or “rescue”, so those words take their ordinary meaning.
The punishment is imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or fine, or both. Under Section 4, imprisonment is of two descriptions, rigorous and simple, and under Section 7 the Court may direct that it be wholly rigorous, wholly simple, or partly one and partly the other. The section fixes no sum for the fine; Section 8(1) provides that where no sum is expressed to which a fine may extend, the fine is unlimited but shall not be excessive. The BNSS First Schedule lists Section 265 as cognizable (under BNSS Section 2(1)(g), a police officer may, in accordance with the First Schedule, arrest without warrant in a cognizable case), bailable (under BNSS Section 478(1), a person other than one accused of a non-bailable offence, who is prepared to give bail, “shall be released on bail”) and triable by any Magistrate. It is not in either compounding table of BNSS Section 359. The maximum imprisonment is six months, against two years under Section 262 and under clause (a) of Section 263.
Imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or fine, or both.
Section 265 applies only to a case “not provided for in section 262 or section 263 or in any other law for the time being in force”. If the conduct is described by Section 262 (resisting one’s own lawful apprehension for an offence, or escaping from custody for that offence) or by Section 263 (resisting the apprehension of, or rescuing, another person for an offence), Section 265 is not the section that applies.
Under the BNSS First Schedule it is cognizable and bailable, and triable by any Magistrate. For a bailable offence, BNSS Section 478(1) says that a person other than one accused of a non-bailable offence, who is prepared to give bail, “shall be released on bail”. It is not in either table of BNSS Section 359, so it is not compoundable.
Yes. The section says “escapes or attempts to escape” and “rescues or attempts to rescue”, so an attempt is within the words of the section and carries the same punishment.
The operative words and the punishment are the same. The differences found in a word-by-word comparison are the updated section numbers in the opening words (262 and 263 for the IPC’s 224 and 225) and a comma in the heading.