Section 346 punishes anyone who removes, destroys, defaces or adds to a property mark, intending or knowing it to be likely that he may thereby cause injury to any person. The punishment is imprisonment of up to one year, or fine, or both. The section is word-for-word the same as IPC Section 489.
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 346 is categorised as Exact — it descends from one section of the old Indian Penal Code, 1860, under the same heading, and the wording is identical:
| BNS section | IPC, 1860 equivalent | Category |
|---|---|---|
| 346 | S.489 “Tampering with property mark with intent to cause injury” | Exact |
A word-by-word comparison of BNS Section 346 with IPC Section 489 shows no difference: the offence (removing, destroying, defacing or adding to any property mark, intending or knowing it to be likely that he may thereby cause injury to any person) and the punishment (imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or fine, or both) are the same in both Acts. The marginal heading is also the same.
Whoever removes, destroys, defaces or adds to any property mark, intending or knowing it to be likely that he may thereby cause injury to any person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, 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 346 is about interfering with a mark that is already there. It applies to a property mark, which Section 345(1) defines as a mark used for denoting that movable property belongs to a particular person. The section lists four alternative acts: removing the mark, destroying it, defacing it, or adding to it. Any one of them, done with the required state of mind, completes the offence. The section lists “adds to” as a fourth, separate act alongside removing, destroying and defacing.
The required state of mind is that the offender acts intending or knowing it to be likely that he may thereby cause injury to any person. “Injury” is defined in Section 2(14) as any harm whatever illegally caused to any person, in body, mind, reputation or property. Either intention or knowledge of likelihood is enough. The words describe what was in the offender's mind when he tampered with the mark; the section does not add a further requirement that injury must in fact have resulted. The section speaks of “any property mark” and does not say that the mark must be one used by someone other than the offender; what it requires is the intention or knowledge of likely injury to any person.
The section should be read alongside its neighbours. Section 345(3) punishes using a false property mark, and Section 347 punishes counterfeiting a property mark, both of which concern misleading marks; Section 346 instead concerns damaging or altering a mark that already denotes ownership. The punishment is imprisonment of either description (simple or rigorous) for a term which may extend to one year, or fine, or both; the section does not fix an amount of fine. Under the BNSS First Schedule the offence is non-cognizable and bailable and is triable by any Magistrate. Unlike Sections 345(3) and 347(1), it appears in neither compounding table of BNSS Section 359, so it is not compoundable under that section.
Imprisonment of either description (simple or rigorous) for a term which may extend to one year, or fine, or both. The section does not fix the amount of the fine.
Under the First Schedule to the BNSS it is non-cognizable and bailable, and triable by any Magistrate. It is not compoundable: it appears in neither table of BNSS Section 359.
The section lists four acts: removing, destroying, defacing, or adding to any property mark. A property mark is a mark used for denoting that movable property belongs to a particular person (Section 345(1)).
The section is worded around the offender's state of mind: he must intend, or know it to be likely, that he may thereby cause injury to any person. It does not add a separate requirement that injury actually resulted.
The section speaks of “any property mark” and does not say that it must be another person's mark. What it requires is the intention or knowledge that injury to any person is likely, with “injury” as defined in Section 2(14).
No. The wording, the punishment and the heading are identical.