Section 73 makes it an offence to print or publish any matter relating to a court proceeding concerning an offence covered by Section 72 (the sexual offences at Sections 64 to 71), without that court's previous permission, punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, and fine. The section's own Explanation carves out one specific exception, described below.
Verified against the National Crime Records Bureau's official BNS–IPC concordance (Sankalan Portal), which maps Section 73 to old IPC Section 228A(3), and cross-checked directly against the bare text of both Acts. As already noted at Section 72, old IPC Section 228A was a single section with three sub-sections; sub-sections (1) and (2) became BNS Section 72, and sub-section (3) — the offence this Section 73 covers — was carried forward as its own, separate section. Section 73 is accordingly marked Split: old IPC 228A is divided between BNS Sections 72 and 73.
| BNS section | Covers | IPC, 1860 equivalent | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| 72(1)–(2) | Disclosure of victim's identity, and exceptions | 228A(1)–(2) | Split |
| 73 | Unauthorised publication of court-proceeding matter | 228A(3) | Split |
Comparing the operative text directly, the offence itself is reproduced largely unchanged — printing or publishing any matter relating to a proceeding before a court, concerning an offence covered by the preceding section, without that court's previous permission, carrying the same punishment (imprisonment of either description up to two years, and fine) as the old provision. The one precise cross-reference update: old IPC 228A(3) referred to "an offence referred to in sub-section (1)" of the same section (itself referring to old, pre-amendment sections 376, 376A–376D), whereas BNS 73 refers instead to "an offence referred to in section 72," reflecting the renumbered set of sexual offences (Sections 64 to 71) that Section 72 itself protects.
Whoever prints or publishes any matter in relation to any proceeding before a Court with respect to an offence referred to in section 72 without the previous permission of such Court shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years and shall also be liable to fine.
Explanation.—The printing or publication of the judgment of any High Court or the Supreme Court does not amount to an offence within the meaning of this section.
Source: Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (Act No. 45 of 2023), as published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary.
Section 73 protects the confidentiality of ongoing court proceedings in the sensitive class of sexual-offence cases covered by Section 72. It requires previous permission from the court itself before any matter relating to such a proceeding is printed or published; doing so without that permission is the offence, regardless of whether the published matter is accurate or otherwise lawful to state. The section's own Explanation states one specific carve-out: publishing a ruling already delivered by a High Court or the Supreme Court in such a case does not amount to an offence under this section, since a court's own public ruling is a different category of material from an account of an ongoing, unresolved proceeding that has not yet received the court's own permission to be reported. The offence under this section is distinct from, though closely related to, the offence under Section 72, which protects the victim's identity specifically; Section 73 instead protects the confidentiality of the proceeding itself, more broadly.
These judgment(s) relate to Section 73 as a whole rather than to one specific sub-section, and so are presented together here rather than alongside a particular clause above.
Para 23 states that s.228A(3) IPC (predecessor of BNS 73) makes publication of court-proceedings matter an offence without the court's previous permission; para 22 explains scope (no reporting of what transpired in camera).
No. The section's own Explanation states that publishing a ruling already delivered by a High Court or the Supreme Court does not amount to an offence under this section.
No. The offence is committed simply by printing or publishing matter relating to the proceeding without the court's previous permission, regardless of whether that matter is accurate.
Section 72 specifically protects the victim's identity. Section 73 more broadly protects the confidentiality of the ongoing court proceeding itself, requiring the court's own permission before any related matter is printed or published.