Section 272 punishes a person who malignantly does an act which is likely to spread the infection of a disease dangerous to life, and which he knows or has reason to believe to be likely to do so. The punishment is imprisonment of either description for up to two years, or fine, or both. Its wording is the same as IPC Section 270.
Verified against the National Crime Records Bureau’s official BNS–IPC concordance (Sankalan Portal) and compared word by word, by a systematic text comparison, with the bare text of both Acts. Section 272 is marked Exact correspondence — it maps to one section of the old Indian Penal Code, 1860, and the comparison found no difference in wording:
| BNS 272 | Covers | IPC, 1860 equivalent | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| 272 | Malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life | S.270 “Malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life” | Exact |
The comparison of IPC Section 270 with BNS Section 272 compared every word and every punctuation mark, including capital letters. The only differences are the section number (270 in the IPC, 272 in the BNS) and the way the heading is printed (inline in the IPC, in the margin in the BNS, with the same words). The ingredients (“malignantly”, the act “likely to spread the infection of any disease dangerous to life”, and the requirement that he “knows or has reason to believe” it to be likely) and the punishment (imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or fine, or both) are worded the same way in both Acts.
Whoever malignantly does any act which is, and which he knows or has reason to believe to be, likely to spread the infection of any disease dangerous to life, 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.
Section 272 has three ingredients. First, the person does an act, and does it malignantly. Second, the act “is” likely to spread the infection of any disease dangerous to life; that is a description of the act itself. Third, the person knows or has reason to believe the act to be likely to spread that infection. The word that marks this section out is “malignantly”. The Sanhita does not define it in Section 2, so it carries its ordinary meaning; in ordinary usage it suggests acting with ill will or spite. This page does not go further than that, because the section itself gives no explanation of the word. The section speaks of an act “likely to spread” infection; its words do not list an actual case of infection as an ingredient.
Some of the other words are defined in Section 2 of the Sanhita, which applies “unless the context otherwise requires”. “Act” denotes as well a series of acts as a single act (Section 2(1)); “life” means the life of a human being, unless the contrary appears from the context (Section 2(17)); and a person is said to have “reason to believe” a thing if he has sufficient cause to believe that thing but not otherwise (Section 2(29)). The Sanhita does not define “infection”, “disease” or “dangerous to life” in Section 2 or in this section, so they carry their ordinary meaning, and the section does not list which diseases are “dangerous to life”.
The punishment is imprisonment of either description (simple or rigorous, under Section 4(c)) for a term which may extend to two years, or fine, or both, so a court may impose any one of the three. The section states no maximum for the fine; Section 8(1) provides that 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 the offence as cognizable (BNSS Section 2(1)(g): a police officer may, in accordance with the First Schedule, arrest without warrant in a cognizable case), bailable (BNSS Section 478 provides that a person accused of a 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.
Section 272 uses the same description of the act and the same knowledge requirement as Section 271, whose conduct words are “unlawfully or negligently” and whose punishment is up to six months; the difference in Section 272 is the word “malignantly” and the longer maximum term of two years. The text of the two sections does not say how they relate where the same facts could be described in both ways, and this page states no rule on it. Section 273 (Disobedience to quarantine rule) is a separate offence about disobeying a rule made by the Government about quarantine, and Section 125 (Act endangering life or personal safety of others) speaks of an act done so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life or the personal safety of others.
The Sanhita does not define the word in Section 2 or in this section, so it carries its ordinary meaning; in ordinary usage it suggests acting with ill will or spite. The word is what separates Section 272 from Section 271, which uses “unlawfully or negligently”.
The section speaks of an act which is “likely to spread the infection” of a disease dangerous to life. Its words describe the act as one that is likely to spread infection; they do not list an actual case of infection as a separate ingredient.
The act described and the knowledge requirement are the same. Section 272 applies to a person who does the act “malignantly” and is punishable with imprisonment of up to two years, or fine, or both; Section 271 applies to a person who does it “unlawfully or negligently” and is punishable with imprisonment of up to six months, or fine, or both.
Under the First Schedule to the BNSS it is a cognizable and bailable offence, triable by any Magistrate. Bail can therefore be claimed as a matter of right (BNSS Section 478, under which a person accused of a bailable offence who is prepared to give bail “shall be released on bail”). It is not one of the offences listed in the compounding tables of BNSS Section 359, so it is not compoundable.
A word-by-word comparison of the two texts, including punctuation and capital letters, found no difference apart from the section number and the way the heading is printed. The punishment (imprisonment of either description for up to two years, or fine, or both) is the same.