Section 103 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) prescribes the punishment for murder. It replaced the most cited section of Indian criminal law - Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code - when the BNS came into force on 1 July 2024.
Careful with the numbers. "Section 302" now means something entirely different: Section 302 BNS is a different offence - uttering words with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings (the old Section 298 IPC). The punishment for murder is this section, 103 BNS. Murder itself is defined in Section 101 BNS (old Section 300 IPC).
What Section 103 BNS provides
- Section 103(1) - whoever commits murder shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine. This is the old Section 302 IPC, unchanged in substance.
- Section 103(2) - a new provision aimed at mob lynching: when a group of five or more persons acting in concert commits murder on the ground of race, caste or community, sex, place of birth, language, personal belief or any other similar ground, each member of the group is punishable with death or imprisonment for life, and fine.
How a murder case proceeds
Murder is a cognizable, non-bailable offence triable by the Court of Session. The choice between the death penalty and life imprisonment is governed by the "rarest of rare" doctrine: the death sentence is the exception, reserved for cases where the alternative of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed, with the court weighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances relating to both the crime and the criminal.
What changed from the IPC
Section 103(1) carries Section 302 IPC forward as it was. Section 103(2) is new - the IPC had no specific provision for group killings on identity grounds; such cases were prosecuted as ordinary murder with common intention or unlawful-assembly provisions. The BNS makes the group liability explicit.
Leading Supreme Court judgments
- Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980) - the Constitution Bench that upheld the death penalty's validity and laid down the rarest-of-rare doctrine.
- Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab (1983) - organised Bachan Singh into working categories: manner of the crime, motive, gravity, and the personality of the victim.
Facing or defending a murder charge? These are Sessions trials where early, competent representation matters enormously. Talk to a criminal lawyer in your city or browse advocates in the Free Law directory.