Indian Penal Code

The Indian Penal Code was the official criminal code of the Republic of India, inherited from British India after independence, and was designed as a comprehensive code covering all the substantive aspects of criminal law. It was drafted under Thomas Babington Macaulay's Law Commission, drawing on English law, the Napoleonic Code and the civil code of Louisiana, and was enacted on October 6, 1860, coming into force on January 1, 1862. The Code remained largely unchanged for more than 150 years, surviving India's transition to independence, though it did not extend automatically to the princely states until the 1940s, and it was only extended to Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, where it replaced the regional Ranbir Penal Code. It was repealed and replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita in December 2023, which took effect on July 1, 2024, though prosecutions for offenses committed before that date continue under the Indian Penal Code.