BNS Section 103 (IPC 302): punishment for murder
The number murder has now, the number it had, what the prosecution must prove, and what follows for bail, custody and trial.
Section 103 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita punishes murder, and replaced section 302 of the Indian Penal Code for offences committed on or after 1 July 2024. The punishment is death or imprisonment for life, and fine. It is cognizable, non-bailable and not compoundable, and it is tried by a Court of Session. A new sub-section, 103(2), applies the same punishment to each member of a group of five or more who kill on the ground of race, caste, community, sex, place of birth, language or belief.
Punishes murder — culpable homicide that meets section 101 — including murder by a group of five or more on grounds such as caste or religion.
- Now
- BNS 103 — Punishment for murder
- Was
- IPC 302
- Punishment
- Death or imprisonment for life, and fine
- Arrest without warrant
- Cognizable
- Bail
- Non-bailable
- Compounding
- Not compoundable
- Tried by
- Court of Session
Read this first: Bail becomes a right if the police do not file a charge-sheet within 90 days of custody (BNSS s. 187(3)).
Carried over under a new number, but the Government’s own comparison table marks this provision as altered rather than merely renumbered. What is punishable, or how severely, is not identical.
| IPC 302 | becomes BNS 103 | substantively-changed |
|---|
Key takeaways
- Section 101 defines murder; section 103 only punishes it. A killing within one of section 101’s five exceptions is culpable homicide, not murder.
- Section 103(1) is the old section 302 word for word. Section 103(2), on killing by a group of five or more, is new.
- Non-bailable means a court decides bail. A Magistrate may not grant it where there are reasonable grounds to believe the accused is guilty, save for a child, a woman, or a sick or infirm person (BNSS s. 480(1)).
- No charge-sheet within ninety days of custody means bail as of right (BNSS s. 187(3)(i)).
- A person sentenced to life for murder cannot be released before serving fourteen years (BNSS s. 475).
What BNS 103 actually requires
Every part below has to be present. This is not a list of factors to be weighed — if one element is missing, the offence is not made out at all, however bad the conduct looks.
- An act by the accused
Something the accused did — alone, or together with others who shared the intention.
and - That causes the death of a person
The act must cause the death. Speeding up the death of someone already ill counts (s. 100, Explanation 1).
and - With one of four states of mind (s. 101)
Intent to kill; intent to cause an injury known to be likely to kill that person; intent to cause an injury sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to kill; or knowing the act is so dangerous it must in all probability kill.
and - And no exception applies
None of section 101’s five exceptions covers it — set out further down this page.
Section 103 punishes; section 101 defines. The elements are read from section 101 together with section 100, which defines culpable homicide.
- SameMurder by one or more persons
BeforeIPC 302: death or imprisonment for life, and fine
NowBNS 103(1): the same words, the same punishment
- ChangedMurder by a group of five or more on the ground of race, caste or community, sex, place of birth, language, personal belief or similar
BeforeNo sub-section of its own
NowBNS 103(2): each member punished with death or imprisonment for life, and fine
- ChangedMurder by a person already serving a life sentence
BeforeIPC 303: murder by a life-convict
NowBNS 104: death, or life imprisonment for the remainder of natural life
Is BNS 103 bailable, cognizable and compoundable?
Arrest, bail and the court come from the First Schedule to the BNSS; compounding comes from section 359. What follows from each label is given with it.
103(1)
- ArrestCognizable
The police may register a case and begin investigating on their own, and may arrest without a warrant from a Magistrate. You do not need a court order to get an investigation started.
- BailNon-bailable
Bail is discretionary, not unavailable. The court decides, weighing the offence, the evidence and the risk. The word describes who decides, not what they decide.
- CompoundingNot compoundable
The complainant cannot end the case by settling it. BNSS s. 359 lists every offence that may be compounded and this one is not on either list, so only the court can end the case.
- Tried byCourt of Session
Tried by a Court of Session — the more serious tier, reached by way of committal from a Magistrate rather than filed there directly.
103(2)
- ArrestCognizable
The police may register a case and begin investigating on their own, and may arrest without a warrant from a Magistrate. You do not need a court order to get an investigation started.
- BailNon-bailable
Bail is discretionary, not unavailable. The court decides, weighing the offence, the evidence and the risk. The word describes who decides, not what they decide.
- CompoundingNot compoundable
The complainant cannot end the case by settling it. BNSS s. 359 lists every offence that may be compounded and this one is not on either list, so only the court can end the case.
- Tried byCourt of Session
Tried by a Court of Session — the more serious tier, reached by way of committal from a Magistrate rather than filed there directly.
Read from the First Schedule to the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (printed pages 180, 181), and section 359 for compounding.
Punishment for murder, against the offences around it
Both sub-sections carry death or imprisonment for life, and fine. There is no term of years: a court that convicts of murder must choose between those two. The Sanhita does not say when death is chosen; that is a sentencing question the courts decide case by case. A life sentence for murder carries a floor of its own — no release before fourteen years, whatever remission would otherwise allow (BNSS s. 475).
- BNS 103 — murderthis pagedeath or life
- BNS 104 — murder by a life convictdeath or life for natural life
- BNS 105 — culpable homicide with intentionlife, or 5 to 10 years
- BNS 109(1) — attempt to murder, hurt causedlife, or up to 10 years
- BNS 105 — culpable homicide with knowledge onlyup to 10 years
- BNS 106(1) — death by negligenceup to 5 years
From the section text. Full-width bars carry death or imprisonment for life, which have no equivalent in years. A maximum is a ceiling, not what a court awards.
What happens, and how long each part takes
- FIR registeredon the day of the report
Registered and investigated without a Magistrate’s order (BNSS s. 173).
- From here it is not yours to control
Everything below happens on the investigating agency’s timetable and the court’s, not yours. You can follow it and you can be heard in it; you cannot set its pace.
Arrest and productionwithin 24 hoursBefore a Magistrate, who may authorise police custody of up to fifteen days in all, within the first sixty (s. 187(2)).
- Charge-sheetwithin 90 days of custody, or bail becomes a right
Total custody before a charge-sheet is capped at ninety days for an offence punishable with death (s. 187(3)(i)).
- Committal to the Court of Session90 days from cognizance, extendable to 180
A Magistrate cannot try murder, and commits it after supplying the documents (ss. 230, 232).
- Trial and judgmenttypically years; judgment within 30 days of arguments, or 45
Charge, evidence and arguments; then judgment within thirty days of arguments, or forty-five (s. 258).
The time limits are the BNSS’s own. No provision fixes how long a murder trial takes; the NCRB figures below show how many were still pending at the end of 2024.
Crime head: Murder (Section 103 BNS / Section 302 IPC). NCRB reports by crime head rather than by section, so this is the closest head to the provision and not a count of cases under it.
- Chargesheeting rate, 202484.7%
Of the cases police finished investigating, the share that ended in a chargesheet rather than being closed.
- Conviction rate, 202443.8%
Of the trials that completed, the share that ended in conviction. Not the share of registered cases — most are still pending.
- Trials still pending at the end of 202492.7%
Of all cases before the courts that year, including those carried over from earlier years, the share not yet decided when the year closed.
NCRB, Crime in India 2024, Tables 17A.1 and 18A.1. The 2024 volume counts IPC cases for January to June and BNS cases from 1 July in the same head. 8,627 convictions in 19,680 completed trials. NCRB marks its murder figures for cases pending investigation as provisional, pending clarifications from Manipur.
Murder or culpable homicide? The five exceptions in section 101
Every murder is culpable homicide, but not every culpable homicide is murder. A killing that meets section 101 is still not murder if one of these five exceptions applies; it is then punished under section 105, not section 103. Each exception is narrow.
| Exception | What it requires | Where it stops applying |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Grave and sudden provocation | Loss of self-control from grave and sudden provocation | Not if the offender sought it, or it came from a lawful act, a public servant’s lawful act, or lawful private defence |
| 2. Exceeding the right of private defence | Going beyond the right of private defence, in good faith | Only without premeditation or intent to do more harm than needed |
| 3. A public servant exceeding powers | An act a public servant believes in good faith is lawful and necessary | Only without ill-will towards the person killed |
| 4. Sudden fight | A sudden fight, in the heat of passion, on a sudden quarrel | Only without premeditation, undue advantage, or cruel or unusual conduct |
| 5. Consent | A person over eighteen consented to death or to the risk of it | Never for someone under eighteen |
The exceptions as enacted in section 101 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Whether a set of facts fits one is decided at trial on the evidence.
If someone close to you has been killed
The police must register an FIR and investigate without a Magistrate’s order. You get a free copy of the FIR (BNSS s. 173(2)), an update on the investigation within ninety days (s. 193(3)), and — if represented by an advocate — the police report and statements within fourteen days of the accused appearing (s. 230).
A forensic expert must visit the scene and the process must be filmed, from the date the State notifies (s. 176(3)). The family may be compensated from a fine, or by the District Legal Services Authority under the State scheme — even where the offender is never identified (ss. 395, 396).
If you have been accused: the procedure and your rights
An arrested person must be told the grounds of arrest, may have a person of their choice informed, and must be produced before a Magistrate within twenty-four hours (BNSS ss. 47, 48, 58). A person in custody is entitled to free legal aid whatever their income (Legal Services Authorities Act, s. 12).
Bail is for a court. A Magistrate may not release a person where there are reasonable grounds to believe they are guilty, unless they are a child, a woman, or sick or infirm; a Court of Session or High Court is not so limited. The Public Prosecutor must be heard first (s. 480(1)).
If no charge-sheet is filed within ninety days of detention, bail becomes a right (s. 187(3)(i)). Release after half the maximum sentence under section 479 does not apply to an offence punishable with death.
More questions about this page
What is IPC 302 in BNS?▼
Is there bail in a murder case under BNS 103?▼
Can a murder case be settled by compromise?▼
What is the punishment for mob lynching under BNS?▼
How many years is life imprisonment for murder?▼
What is the difference between BNS 101 and BNS 103?▼
Official sources checked
The statutes, rules and regulator pages the statements on this page were checked against.
- Read 13 September 2026. Section 103(1) and (2), and all five exceptions to section 101, quoted from the enacted text.
- Printed page 180–181. Cognizable; non-bailable; Court of Session.
- Custody limits, charge-sheet and committal timelines, compounding, compensation and bail.
- IPC 302 → BNS 103, marked as changed.
- Murder head, row 23 of Table 17A.1 and the matching row of 18A.1. Retrieved 13 September 2026.
What to do next
A criminal matter is not something to work out from a page, and this one does not pretend otherwise. Whether you are complaining or answering a charge, the next step is a lawyer.
Free legal services are a legal entitlement, not charity. Under section 12 of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 they are available to anyone in custody, every woman and every child, members of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, persons with disabilities, victims of trafficking or of a disaster or caste atrocity, industrial workers, and anyone whose income is below the limit their State sets — provided the legal services authority is satisfied there is a case to bring or defend (section 13).
- NALSA — National Legal Services Authority
- NALSA legal aid helpline (toll-free): 15100
- Your District Legal Services Authority. Every district has one, at the district court, and it is the office that arranges a lawyer.
Not legal advice. This page explains what a provision says and how the procedure around it works, checked against the Act as in force on the date shown. It is not advice about a charge, a complaint or an arrest, and it cannot be: whether a provision fits a set of facts is the question a court decides, and the facts a page cannot see are usually the ones that matter. If you are facing a criminal matter, or deciding whether to start one, speak to an advocate.
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Last reviewed September 2026.