Explore the Kinds of Punishments under BNS

The Indian Penal Code, as the term included, purportedly aimed at punishing the wrongdoers. On the other hand, as specifically introduced in the Parliament, the object of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita is ‘Nyaya’, which means justice. Although the BNS is more or less said to be “Old Wine in New Bottle”, when we talk about the kinds of punishments under BNS, there is an upgrade. Community service is the newly included type of punishment for crimes under the Sanhita. To get the hang of it, Lawgical Shots brings a simplified explanation of the various types of punishments under the BNS, in the blog hereunder.

Kinds of Punishments under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023

There were 5 types of punishments under the Indian Penal Code, 1860. The same have been extended to 6 kinds of punishments under BNS. Death Penalty or Capital Punishment, life imprisonment, imprisonment for a specific term, forfeiture of property and fine were the punishments under IPC. Community service is the newly included type to punish people convicted of a particular offence, as specifically required under the Sanhita.

Section 4 of BNS

Since there is an overturn of the provisions under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 as compared to the Indian Penal Code, 1860, punishments are provided under Section 4 of BNS. Given below are the kinds of punishments under BNS and their simple explanations to help understand what they mean and include.

Death

Death penalty, also known as capital punishment, means punishing a person with a death sentence for commiting a specific offence. It is also termed as the State-sanctioned killing of a person. Some of the gravest and rarest of rare offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita are punishable with death. Examples include murder, terrorist act, dacoity, etc. While several organisations advocate against the death penalty as a punishment under penal laws, the Government of India did not drop the same while enacting new laws and repealing the Indian Penal Code, 1860. It may further be noted that while death penalty may be pronounced by Courts in rarest of rare cases, its execution is not as frequent in India.

Life Imprisonment

Following the death penalty, life imprisonment is the second gravest types of punishments under BNS. There is a confusion that life imprisonment literally means staying in the prison till his/her natural death. However, things are not as black-n-white here. Section 6 of BNS states that “In calculating fractions of terms of punishment, imprisonment for life shall be reckoned as equivalent to imprisonment for twenty years unless otherwise provided.” This means that the ‘life’ here usually means 20 years. However, there have been some rarest of the rare cases where Courts pronounced life imprisonment for the convict and specifically clarified that the person shall stay in prison until he/she dies. There have been some other cases where the death penalty has been commuted by the Court or Government, to life imprisonment where the convict is supposed to stay in jail till life.

Imprisonment

The kinds of punishments under BNS state imprisonment as the most common one. Here, imprisonment is ordered for a specific term whereby usually, a range of punishment is given. For example, the offence of hiring, employing or engaging a child to commit an offence (Section 95 of BNS) is punishable with “imprisonment of either description which shall not be less than three years but which may extend to ten years”. There are two kinds of imprisonment as a punishment:

Rigorous Imprisonment

It means imprisonment with hard labour. In other words, the convict shall remain in the jail for the given term and also do tasks like mining, construction, manufacturing furniture, clothes, etc.

Simple Imprisonment

As the term suggests, simple imprisonment only involves staying in jail for the term for which the person is sentenced.

It may be noted that the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita provides that whether a person is sentenced to rigorous imprisonment or simple imprisonment shall be the discretion of the Court.

Also read – Defamation under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita

Forfeiture of Property

Forfeiture in general means losing or being deprived of something as a penalty for doing something wrong. Usually, it is the property used in committing the particular offence. Hence, one of the kinds of punishments under BNS includes forfeiture of property. An example is Section 154 wherein committing depredation on foreign State territories at peace with the Indian Government is punished with forfeiture of property used in such act.

Fine

Being the most frequent among the kinds of punishments under BNS, fine is imposed with imprisonment provided under the legal provision. There are some offences for which the amount of fine is prescribed. In other cases wherein the offence is punishable “with fine”, it is the discretion of the Court. In fact, the judgments of sentences passed by Courts also specify the term of imprisonment to be served by the convict in case of failure to pay the fine.

Community Service

While the concept was nowhere provided under the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Courts were pioneers of imposing community service as a punishment in India. Later, when the Government came up with the new criminal laws, community services were included as one of the kinds of punishments under BNS. Examples of community service could be planting a certain no. of trees, maintaining a library, cleaning local parks, etc. The type of community service as a punishment to be imposed in a particular offence is the discretion of the Court, since the same is not specified under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.