Section 340 does two things. Sub-section (1) defines a “forged document or electronic record” as a false one made wholly or in part by forgery. Sub-section (2) punishes a person who fraudulently or dishonestly uses such a document or electronic record as genuine, knowing or having reason to believe it to be forged, in the same manner as if he had forged it. It brings together IPC Sections 470 and 471 and adds electronic records.
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 340 carries no Change marker in the concordance, which lists it against two IPC sections; classed as Exact in substance on Lexovia's own comparison of the two texts — two separate sections of the old Indian Penal Code, 1860 are brought together in this one section, one for each sub-section (a 2→1 merger). The only wording difference found is the electronic-record addition, which the local IPC extract cannot settle (see the sourcing note below), so the substance is not labelled as changed. The concordance itself carries no Change marker for this row:
| BNS section | IPC, 1860 equivalent | Category |
|---|---|---|
| 340(1) | S.470 “Forged document.” | Exact |
| 340(2) | S.471 “Using as genuine a forged document.” | Exact |
Structure — merged (2→1): sub-section (1) corresponds to IPC Section 470 and sub-section (2) to IPC Section 471. Substance — no established change: a word-by-word comparison of the two texts shows exactly these differences. (1) IPC Section 470 reads “A false document made wholly or in part by forgery is designated ‘a forged document’.” BNS 340(1) adds “or electronic record” after “A false document” and again in the designation (“a forged document or electronic record”), and the BNS does not put the designation in quotation marks. (2) IPC Section 471 speaks only of a “document”; BNS 340(2) adds “or electronic record” in three places: after “any document”, after “a forged document”, and after “such document” in the punishment clause. Nothing else differs in the wording: the punishment is expressed in the same way in both Acts (“in the same manner as if he had forged such document”, with the BNS adding “or electronic record”). The marginal headings also differ: the IPC has “Forged document.” and “Using as genuine a forged document.” for the two sections, and the BNS has the single heading “Forged document or electronic record and using it as genuine.” The concordance’s own IPC column, however, heads these two sections “Forged document or electronic record” and “Using as genuine a forged document or electronic record”, which differs from the headings in the IPC text held for this comparison. Sourcing note: the IPC text held for this comparison is this project’s local extract, which contains no electronic-record wording at all and does not include the amendments made by the Information Technology Act, 2000. The electronic-record differences above are therefore stated against that older text only; the concordance’s own headings suggest, and the true IPC as it stood immediately before the BNS took effect may well have carried, the same wording, in which case the real old-to-new difference is smaller than stated here, or nil. Because the electronic-record addition was the only basis for calling the substance “Substantively changed”, both rows are labelled “Exact”; the 2→1 structural merger and the heading change stand as described. If a complete current IPC text shows a genuine difference, the label should be revisited.
(1) A false document or electronic record made wholly or in part by forgery is designated a forged document or electronic record.
(2) Whoever fraudulently or dishonestly uses as genuine any document or electronic record which he knows or has reason to believe to be a forged document or electronic record, shall be punished in the same manner as if he had forged such document or electronic record.
Source: Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (Act No. 45 of 2023), as published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary.
Sub-section (1) is a definition and prescribes no punishment of its own. It says that a false document or electronic record made wholly or in part by forgery is “designated a forged document or electronic record”. Two earlier definitions sit behind it. A false document or false electronic record is what Section 335 describes, under three heads: (A) dishonestly or fraudulently making, signing, sealing or executing a document (or making or transmitting an electronic record, affixing an electronic signature, or making a mark denoting execution or authenticity) with the intention of causing it to be believed that it was made or affixed by, or by the authority of, a person by whom or by whose authority the maker knows it was not; (B) without lawful authority, and dishonestly or fraudulently, altering a document or electronic record in a material part after it has been made or executed; and (C) dishonestly or fraudulently causing a person to sign, seal, execute or alter a document or electronic record, or to affix an electronic signature, knowing that the person cannot, by reason of unsoundness of mind or intoxication, or does not, by reason of deception practised on him, know its contents or the nature of the alteration. “Forgery” is the offence defined in Section 336(1): making a false document or electronic record, or a part of one, with one of the intents listed there. A document is therefore “forged” under sub-section (1) when it is false in the Section 335 sense and was made by forgery in the Section 336(1) sense.
The words “wholly or in part” mean that the label is not confined to a document fabricated from nothing: a document that is genuine in most respects but has been made false in part by forgery, such as one carrying a forged alteration in a material part, is also a forged document under this sub-section. The label matters because other provisions are built on it: Section 339 punishes possessing a document “knowing the same to be forged”, and sub-section (2) of this section punishes using as genuine a document that the user knows or has reason to believe to be forged. Section 340 speaks throughout of “document or electronic record”. Section 2(8) already provides that “document” includes electronic and digital record, and Section 2(39) provides that words and expressions used but not defined in the Sanhita, but defined in the Information Technology Act, 2000 or the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, have the meanings assigned to them in that Act and Sanhita; Section 2 itself does not define “electronic record”.
Sub-section (2) punishes a person who uses a forged document as genuine. Its ingredients are: (1) he uses as genuine any document or electronic record; (2) the use is fraudulent or dishonest; and (3) he knows or has reason to believe the document or electronic record to be forged, that is, a forged document or electronic record within sub-section (1). The person using it need not be the person who forged it: the sub-section is about use, and it says the user “shall be punished in the same manner as if he had forged such document or electronic record”. “Fraudulently” and “dishonestly” are defined in Section 2(9) and Section 2(7), and “reason to believe” in Section 2(29) (sufficient cause to believe a thing but not otherwise). The mental element here is wider than in Section 339, because this sub-section is satisfied by knowledge or by reason to believe, while Section 339 speaks only of knowing. The sub-section also applies to any forged document or electronic record, not only to those of the descriptions in Sections 337 and 338.
Because the punishment is fixed by reference to forgery of “such document”, the sentence that applies depends on what the forged document is: forgery of a valuable security or will (Section 338), of a court record (Section 337) and forgery in general (Section 336) are punished differently. The sub-section does not set out a sentence of its own; it borrows the one attached to forging that document. Under the BNSS First Schedule the row for Section 340(2) is cognizable and bailable and triable by a Magistrate of the first class, with the punishment column reading “Punishment for forgery of such document”. The offence is not compoundable: it appears in neither table of BNSS Section 359. Actual use is what sub-section (2) is directed at; Section 339 is the provision for possession with the intent that the document be used.
These judgment(s) relate to Section 340 as a whole rather than to one specific sub-section, and so are presented together here rather than alongside a particular clause above.
A complainant alleged that a man with no connection to a plot of land in Madhubani, Bihar, had executed two registered sale deeds of part of it, with a witness, scribe and stamp vendor conspiring, and that the deeds were forgeries. The Magistrate took cognizance of forgery of a valuable security (old Section 467 of the Indian Penal Code), using a forged document as genuine (old Section 471), cheating and other offences; the accused were refused discharge, and the High Court refused to quash.
The Supreme Court quashed the forgery, cheating and insult charges. It explained that old Section 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and old Section 470 (a forged document is a false document made by forgery), now Section 340 of the Sanhita, depend on there being a false document made by forgery in the first place. Because executing a sale deed for land one claims as one’s own is not making a false document, there was no forgery, and the charge of using a forged document as genuine fell with it.
Section 340(1) says that a false document or electronic record made wholly or in part by forgery is a forged document or electronic record. “False document” is described in Section 335 and “forgery” in Section 336(1).
The person who fraudulently or dishonestly uses a document or electronic record as genuine, knowing or having reason to believe it to be forged, is punished in the same manner as if he had forged it, so the punishment follows the section that applies to forging that particular document.
Under the First Schedule to the BNSS the offence under sub-section (2) is cognizable and bailable, and triable by a Magistrate of the first class. It is not compoundable under BNSS Section 359. Sub-section (1) is a definition and has no classification of its own.
No. The sub-section punishes the person who uses the document as genuine, knowing or having reason to believe it to be forged. It does not require that he forged it.
Yes. The two IPC sections are combined into one section with two sub-sections, and the words “or electronic record” are added in the definition and in the sub-section on use. The punishment is expressed in the same way.