Section 100 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) defines culpable homicide - the foundational offence from which the entire law of homicide in India is built. It replaced Section 299 IPC without change when the BNS came into force on 1 July 2024. Culpable homicide is the genus; murder, defined in Section 101 BNS, is its aggravated species.
What Section 100 BNS provides
Whoever causes death by doing an act:
- with the intention of causing death; or
- with the intention of causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death; or
- with the knowledge that the act is likely to cause death,
commits the offence of culpable homicide. The section's explanations carry forward the familiar rules: causing death by injuring a person already suffering from a disorder or disease is still causing death; it is no defence that proper treatment could have prevented the death; and causing the death of a living child in the mother's womb is not homicide, but it may be culpable homicide to cause the death of a child once any part of it has been brought forth.
Culpable homicide versus murder
Every murder is culpable homicide, but not every culpable homicide is murder. Section 101 BNS lifts a killing to murder when the higher degrees of intention or knowledge set out there are present and none of the exceptions - such as grave and sudden provocation or sudden fight - applies. In State of Andhra Pradesh v. Rayavarapu Punnayya (1976), the Supreme Court gave the classic formulation: culpable homicide is the genus and murder its specie, the difference lying in the degree of probability of death flowing from the act. Where a case falls short of murder, it is punished as culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 105 BNS.
Why the definition matters in practice
Most contested homicide trials are fought precisely on this line - whether the act was murder or culpable homicide not amounting to murder - because the sentence differs dramatically. The court examines the weapon, the body part targeted, the number of blows, premeditation and the surrounding circumstances to place the case on one side or the other. Section 100 is a definition section: it prescribes no punishment itself, and the classification and sentence attach to the punishing sections.
What changed from Section 299 IPC
Nothing - the definition was renumbered from Section 299 IPC to Section 100 BNS with no change, and the case law developed under the IPC continues to apply. Take care with the number: Section 299 in the new code is a different offence relating to outraging religious feelings.
Involved in a homicide case, on either side? Whether the charge is murder or culpable homicide is often the single most consequential question in the trial. Talk to a criminal lawyer in your city or browse advocates in the Free Law directory.