Section 3 lays down nine general interpretive rules that apply throughout the Sanhita — from reading every offence subject to the General Exceptions chapter, to constructive possession through a spouse, clerk, or servant, to how liability is shared among people who act together with a common intention or who cooperate in causing the same criminal effect.
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 3 is a Merged provision — it consolidates nine separate IPC “General Explanations” sections into one section with nine sub-sections, each mapping one-to-one onto its own old IPC provision:
| BNS 3 | Covers | IPC, 1860 equivalent | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3(1) | Subject to General Exceptions | S.6 “Definitions in the Code to be understood subject to exceptions” | Exact |
| 3(2) | Consistent meaning of defined expressions | S.7 “Sense of expression once explained” | Exact |
| 3(3) | Constructive possession via spouse, clerk or servant | S.27 “Property in possession of wife, clerk or servant” | Substantively changed |
| 3(4) | Acts extend to illegal omissions | S.32 “Words referring to acts include illegal omissions” | Exact |
| 3(5) | Liability for acts done in furtherance of common intention | S.34 “Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention” | Exact |
| 3(6) | Liability where the act is criminal only by reason of knowledge/intention | S.35 | Exact |
| 3(7) | Effect caused partly by act and partly by omission | S.36 | Exact |
| 3(8) | Cooperation by doing one of several acts constituting an offence | S.37 | Exact |
| 3(9) | Persons concerned in a criminal act may be guilty of different offences | S.38 | Exact |
Sub-sections (1), (2), and (4) through (9) carry over unchanged in substance and wording (allowing for “Code”/“Sanhita” and minor spelling updates such as “co-operates” to “cooperates”) from IPC Sections 6, 7, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, and 38 respectively, including their built-in illustrations. The only further differences are corrections of printing slips visible in the IPC text used for this comparison: the illustration to IPC Section 6 reads “which done by child” where BNS 3(1) reads “which is done by a child”; the illustration to IPC Section 36 reads “party by beating Z” where BNS 3(7) reads “partly by beating Z”; and illustration (b) to IPC Section 37 reads “Z dues of hunger” where BNS 3(8) reads “Z dies of hunger”. Sub-section (3) is the one genuine textual delta of substance: old IPC Section 27 read “When property is in the possession of a person's wife, clerk or servant”; BNS 3(3) reads “When property is in the possession of a person's spouse, clerk or servant.” (Its Explanation also now refers to “this sub-section” where IPC 27 said “this section”.) The substitution of “spouse” for “wife” makes the constructive-possession rule apply symmetrically regardless of which spouse holds the property on the other's account, rather than being drafted only for a husband holding property through his wife.
(1) Throughout this Sanhita every definition of an offence, every penal provision, and every Illustration of every such definition or penal provision, shall be understood subject to the exceptions contained in the Chapter entitled “General Exceptions”, though those exceptions are not repeated in such definition, penal provision, or Illustration.
Illustrations.
(a) The sections in this Sanhita, which contain definitions of offences, do not express that a child under seven years of age cannot commit such offences; but the definitions are to be understood subject to the general exception which provides that nothing shall be an offence which is done by a child under seven years of age.
(b) A, a police officer, without warrant, apprehends Z, who has committed murder. Here A is not guilty of the offence of wrongful confinement; for he was bound by law to apprehend Z, and therefore the case falls within the general exception which provides that “nothing is an offence which is done by a person who is bound by law to do it”.
(2) Every expression which is explained in any Part of this Sanhita, is used in every Part of this Sanhita in conformity with the explanation.
(3) When property is in the possession of a person's spouse, clerk or servant, on account of that person, it is in that person's possession within the meaning of this Sanhita.
Explanation.—A person employed temporarily or on a particular occasion in the capacity of a clerk or servant, is a clerk or servant within the meaning of this sub-section.
(4) In every Part of this Sanhita, except where a contrary intention appears from the context, words which refer to acts done extend also to illegal omissions.
(5) When a criminal act is done by several persons in furtherance of the common intention of all, each of such persons is liable for that act in the same manner as if it were done by him alone.
(6) Whenever an act, which is criminal only by reason of its being done with a criminal knowledge or intention, is done by several persons, each of such persons who joins in the act with such knowledge or intention is liable for the act in the same manner as if the act were done by him alone with that knowledge or intention.
(7) Wherever the causing of a certain effect, or an attempt to cause that effect, by an act or by an omission, is an offence, it is to be understood that the causing of that effect partly by an act and partly by an omission is the same offence.
Illustration.
A intentionally causes Z's death, partly by illegally omitting to give Z food, and partly by beating Z. A has committed murder.
(8) When an offence is committed by means of several acts, whoever intentionally cooperates in the commission of that offence by doing any one of those acts, either singly or jointly with any other person, commits that offence.
Illustrations.
(a) A and B agree to murder Z by severally and at different times giving him small doses of poison. A and B administer the poison according to the agreement with intent to murder Z. Z dies from the effects the several doses of poison so administered to him. Here A and B intentionally cooperate in the commission of murder and as each of them does an act by which the death is caused, they are both guilty of the offence though their acts are separate.
(b) A and B are joint jailors, and as such have the charge of Z, a prisoner, alternatively for six hours at a time. A and B, intending to cause Z's death, knowingly cooperate in causing that effect by illegally omitting, each during the time of his attendance, to furnish Z with food supplied to them for that purpose. Z dies of hunger. Both A and B are guilty of the murder of Z.
(c) A, a jailor, has the charge of Z, a prisoner. A, intending to cause Z's death, illegally omits to supply Z with food; in consequence of which Z is much reduced in strength, but the starvation is not sufficient to cause his death. A is dismissed from his office, and B succeeds him. B, without collusion or cooperation with A, illegally omits to supply Z with food, knowing that he is likely thereby to cause Z's death. Z dies of hunger. B is guilty of murder, but, as A did not cooperate with B. A is guilty only of an attempt to commit murder.
(9) Where several persons are engaged or concerned in the commission of a criminal act, they may be guilty of different offences by means of that act.
Illustration.
A attacks Z under such circumstances of grave provocation that his killing of Z would be only culpable homicide not amounting to murder. B, having ill-will towards Z and intending to kill him, and not having been subject to the provocation, assists A in killing Z. Here, though A and B are both engaged in causing Z's death, B is guilty of murder, and A is guilty only of culpable homicide.
Source: Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (Act No. 45 of 2023), as published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary.
Sub-section (1) is a drafting-economy rule: rather than repeating every General Exception (such as the exceptions for a child under seven, unsoundness of mind, or acts done under legal compulsion) inside every single offence-defining section, the Sanhita states each offence's ingredients on their own, and this sub-section confirms that all of them are always read subject to the General Exceptions chapter regardless of whether that chapter is mentioned in the particular section. A prosecutor or court applying any offence-defining section must therefore always check whether a General Exception removes criminal liability, even where the section creating the offence says nothing about exceptions at all.
Sub-section (2) fixes a single, stable meaning for every expression the Sanhita itself explains — once an expression is explained anywhere in the Sanhita, that same explanation governs every other use of the expression throughout the Sanhita, not just the Part in which it happens to be explained. This prevents a reader (or a court) from having to ask, section by section, whether a defined word might mean something different in a different Part of the Act; it also prevents inconsistent interpretation of the same term across different offences.
Sub-section (3) extends the meaning of “possession” for the whole Sanhita: where property is physically held by a person's spouse, clerk, or servant, but held on that person's account (that is, for that person's benefit or under that person's direction), the property is treated as being in that person's own possession, not merely in the possession of the spouse, clerk, or servant who physically holds it. The Explanation attached to this sub-section widens “clerk or servant” further, to include someone employed only temporarily or for a single occasion in that capacity — a person does not need to be a permanent employee to trigger this rule. This matters throughout the Sanhita wherever an offence turns on whether property was in a particular person's possession (theft, criminal misappropriation, criminal breach of trust, and similar offences all build on this constructive-possession concept).
Sub-section (4) prevents offences drafted in terms of “acts” from being read as applying only to positive conduct and never to a failure to act. Wherever the Sanhita refers to an act done, that reference also extends to an illegal omission — a failure to do something the person was legally bound to do — unless the context of the particular provision shows a contrary intention. This is what allows offences that are, in substance, about causing a result (such as death or injury) to be committed just as much by deliberately withholding something the accused was legally obliged to provide as by taking a direct, positive action.
Sub-section (5) is the Sanhita's common-intention rule: where a criminal act is done by several people acting in furtherance of a shared intention held by all of them, each participant is made liable for that act exactly as if that person alone had done the whole thing. Two elements matter: first, there must be a common intention shared by all the participants (not merely each person having their own separate intention that happens to align); second, the act must be done in furtherance of that shared intention. Once both are shown, the law does not ask which participant physically carried out which part of the act — each is fixed with liability for the entire criminal act as if done by that person alone.
Sub-section (6) addresses a narrower situation than sub-section (5): here, the act itself is not inherently criminal — it becomes criminal only because of the particular knowledge or intention with which it is done. Where such an act is carried out by several people, only those among them who actually joined in the act while personally holding that criminal knowledge or intention are liable, and each such person is liable as if that person alone had done the act with that knowledge or intention. A participant who joined the act without sharing the relevant guilty knowledge or intention is not fixed with liability under this sub-section merely by physical participation.
Sub-section (7) closes a gap that could otherwise arise where an offence is defined in terms of causing (or attempting to cause) a particular effect: it confirms that causing that effect partly through a positive act and partly through an omission is treated as the very same offence as causing it wholly by an act, or wholly by an omission. A person cannot escape liability for an offence defined by its effect merely because part of the causal chain was an act and part was a failure to act; the two are not treated as separate, lesser categories of wrongdoing.
Sub-section (8) covers an offence that is committed through several separate acts, where each participant intentionally cooperates by carrying out just one of those acts, whether alone or together with someone else. Every person who intentionally cooperates in this way commits the offence itself, not merely a lesser degree of participation in it — there is no need for any one participant to have carried out the whole course of conduct personally, so long as that participant intentionally contributed one of the acts that together constitute the offence. The statute's own three illustrations trace out how this plays out where the cooperating acts are simultaneous, where they are sequential and cumulative, and where a later act (done without collusion with the earlier actor) breaks the chain of cooperation for the earlier actor's own liability.
Sub-section (9) confirms that when several people are engaged or concerned together in one criminal act, the law does not have to convict all of them of the same offence for that same act. Each participant's own individual mental state and circumstances at the time can result in different participants being guilty of different offences, even though they were all involved in causing the same overall result. This sits alongside, rather than against, the common-intention rule in sub-section (5): sub-section (5) applies where the participants genuinely share the same intention, while sub-section (9) recognises that where they do not, the law can and does differentiate between them.
These judgment(s) relate to Section 3 as a whole rather than to one specific sub-section, and so are presented together here rather than alongside a particular clause above.
Three police constables travelling in the same car as a fourth accused, who shot and killed the deceased, were convicted by the High Court under old IPC S.34 (common intention) solely because they were present in the vehicle when the shooting happened. The trial court had acquitted them, finding no evidence of any shared intention. The Supreme Court restored the acquittal, holding that mere presence at the scene, even alongside the principal offender, cannot substitute for proof of a pre-arranged plan and a prior meeting of minds; common intention requires that the criminal act be done in furtherance of an intention shared before the act, not inferred after the fact from physical proximity alone.
Currency check: decided January 2025; applies settled, still-good-law authority (Ezajhussain Sabdarhussain, Jasdeep Singh, Gadadhar Chandra, Madhusudan); carries over directly to BNS Section 3(5), which reproduces old IPC Section 34 without substantive change; a web search run on 30 September 2026 for later decisions overruling or distinguishing it on this point returned none in the results reviewed.
Yes. Sub-section (1) confirms every offence definition and penal provision is read subject to the General Exceptions chapter, even where the particular section is silent about exceptions and does not repeat them.
Sub-section (5) itself asks that the criminal act be done “in furtherance of the common intention of all”; it does not prescribe any formal agreement. The Supreme Court decision quoted below on this page stresses that, for the corresponding old IPC Section 34, the prosecution must establish a prior meeting of minds and that all the accused preplanned and shared a common intention.
Yes. Sub-section (9) expressly allows this — where people are engaged or concerned together in one criminal act, each one's own individual state of mind can result in different participants being guilty of different offences arising from that same act.