Section 89 punishes committing the Section 88 offence without the woman's consent, whether or not she is quick with child, with imprisonment for life, or imprisonment of either description up to ten years, and fine.
Verified against the National Crime Records Bureau's official BNS–IPC concordance (Sankalan Portal), which maps Section 89 to old IPC Section 313, and cross-checked directly against the bare text of both Acts.
| BNS section | IPC, 1860 equivalent | Category |
|---|---|---|
| 89 | 313 | Exact |
Comparing the two texts word for word, Section 89 is reproduced without any substantive change from old IPC Section 313, apart from the cross-reference itself now naming "section 88" directly rather than the old text's "the last preceding section" — a natural consequence of the renumbering, not a change in meaning.
Whoever commits the offence under section 88 without the consent of the woman, whether the woman is quick with child or not, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.
Source: Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (Act No. 45 of 2023), as published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary.
Section 89 escalates the Section 88 offence sharply when the woman's consent is absent. Where Section 88 caps punishment at three or seven years depending on whether the woman is quick with child, Section 89 removes that distinction entirely — it applies "whether the woman is quick with child or not" — and raises the punishment to imprisonment for life, or imprisonment of either description up to ten years, with fine. The absence of consent is what elevates the conduct from Section 88 to this more serious offence.
These judgment(s) relate to Section 89 as a whole rather than to one specific sub-section, and so are presented together here rather than alongside a particular clause above.
A daughter-in-law's FIR accused her husband and parents-in-law of feeding her poisoned food that caused a miscarriage, invoking ss.312/313 IPC (this section's predecessor). The Supreme Court found the allegations inherently implausible: the FIR never explained how the appellants even knew she was pregnant, since she lived separately and had not informed them — yet they were alleged to have brought pre-made poisoned food from their village specifically for this purpose. The complaint was also filed only after a divorce notice, with no earlier mention of the incident. Concluding the case was a matrimonial dispute dressed up as a criminal complaint, the Court quashed the FIR as an abuse of process under s.482 CrPC.
Currency check: decided December 2024, a very recent authority directly on causing miscarriage without consent; no adverse subsequent history found.
Section 88 applies to causing a miscarriage generally, with punishment varying by whether the woman is quick with child. Section 89 applies specifically where the woman did not consent, and carries a substantially higher punishment — up to imprisonment for life — regardless of whether she was quick with child.
No. Section 89 expressly applies "whether the woman is quick with child or not" — the distinction that matters for Section 88 does not affect Section 89's punishment.
No. Per the BNSS First Schedule, it is non-bailable, cognizable, and triable by the Court of Session.