Section 278 punishes a person who knowingly sells, or offers or exposes for sale, or issues from a dispensary for medicinal purposes, any drug or medical preparation as a different drug or medical preparation. The punishment is imprisonment of up to six months, or a fine of up to ₹5,000, or both. It is the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita’s version of IPC Section 276, with the maximum fine raised from ₹1,000 to ₹5,000.
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 278 is marked Substantively changed — it descends from one section of the old Indian Penal Code, 1860, but the maximum fine has been raised:
| BNS 278 | Covers | IPC, 1860 equivalent | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| 278 | Sale of drug as a different drug or preparation | S.276 “Sale of drug as a different drug or preparation” | Substantively changed |
The description of the offence is the same in both Acts. A word-by-word comparison of the two texts, run by program with every differing span examined, found one difference in the operative words, and it is in the punishment clause: IPC Section 276 said “fine which may extend to one thousand rupees”, and BNS Section 278 says “fine which may extend to five thousand rupees”. The maximum fine therefore rises from ₹1,000 to ₹5,000. The imprisonment term (up to six months) and the three possible outcomes (imprisonment, fine, or both) are unchanged, and apart from the section number and the marginal heading no other word or punctuation mark differs. No ingredient of the offence was added or removed.
Whoever knowingly sells, or offers or exposes for sale, or issues from a dispensary for medicinal purposes, any drug or medical preparation, as a different drug or medical preparation, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to five thousand rupees, or with both.
Source: Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (Act No. 45 of 2023), as published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary.
Section 278 has three ingredients. The first is a mental element: the offender acts knowingly, a word placed before the list of acts. The second is an act, in three alternatives joined by “or”: the offender sells; or offers or exposes for sale; or issues from a dispensary for medicinal purposes. The third concerns what is done with the article: the article is any drug or medical preparation, and it is sold, offered, exposed or issued as a different drug or medical preparation. The Sanhita does not define “knowingly”, “drug”, “medical preparation” or “dispensary” in Section 2, so those words take their ordinary meaning; in ordinary usage, a dispensary is a place where medicines are dispensed.
The words of the section do not mention adulteration, and do not mention harm to anyone. What the section describes is the misdescription of one drug or medical preparation as another. That separates it from Section 277, which is worded around a person who knows that a drug or preparation has been adulterated and sells or issues it, and from Section 276, which is worded around the act of adulterating. Offering or exposing for sale is enough on the words of the section: no completed sale is required.
The punishment is imprisonment of either description (rigorous, with hard labour, or simple, as listed in Section 4(c)) for a term which may extend to six months, or fine which may extend to five thousand rupees, or both. Under the BNSS First Schedule the offence is non-cognizable (under BNSS Section 2(1)(o) a police officer has no authority to arrest without warrant in a non-cognizable case, 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), bailable (BNSS Section 478 applies to a person other than one accused of a non-bailable offence and provides that, if he is prepared to give bail, he “shall be released on bail”), triable by any Magistrate, and not in either compounding table of BNSS Section 359 (and Section 359(9) provides that no offence shall be compounded except as provided by that Section).
The section punishes selling, offering or exposing for sale, or issuing from a dispensary, a drug or medical preparation as though it were a different drug or medical preparation. The words of the section do not mention adulteration or harm; they are concerned with the drug being passed off as a different one.
Yes, on the words of the section: it covers a person who knowingly sells, or offers or exposes for sale, or issues from a dispensary for medicinal purposes. A completed sale is one of the alternatives, not a requirement.
Under the First Schedule to the BNSS 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 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. Because it is bailable, BNSS Section 478 applies: a person who is prepared to give bail “shall be released on bail”. The offence is not in either compounding table of BNSS Section 359.
The description of the offence is unchanged. The one difference in the text is the fine: the maximum rises from ₹1,000 (IPC Section 276) to ₹5,000 (BNS Section 278). The maximum imprisonment stays at six months.
Section 277 is about a person who, knowing that a drug or preparation has been adulterated, sells it, offers or exposes it for sale, issues it from a dispensary as unadulterated, or causes it to be used by a person not knowing of the adulteration. Section 278 is about knowingly selling, offering, exposing or issuing a drug or preparation as a different drug or preparation.