The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 · Ch. XXVI — GENERAL PROVISIONS AS TO INQUIRIES AND TRIALS
Any person accused of an offence before a Criminal Court, or against whom proceedings are instituted under this Sanhita, may of right be defended by an advocate of his choice.
Sections of the BNSS are not classified one by one by any First Schedule. Part II of the First Schedule to the BNSS classifies offences under every other law by the punishment they carry — and the CRPC’s First Schedule sets out the same three bands.
If punishable with death, imprisonment for life, or imprisonment for more than 7 years.
If punishable with imprisonment for 3 years and upwards but not more than 7 years.
If punishable with imprisonment for less than 3 years or with fine only.
Read it against the punishment in the section above. Vidhara does not place a section in a band for you — that turns on the exact wording of its punishment, which is the section’s to say and not ours.
And a special or local law may provide otherwise: see BNSS section 5, which saves any special jurisdiction, power or procedure another law lays down.
CRPC Section 303 → BNSS Section 340 per the official NCRB Sankalan table.
This is the text of CRPC Section 303, not of the section above. Read both before relying on either.
Any person accused of an offence before a Criminal Court, or against whom proceedings are instituted under this Code, may of right be defended by a pleader of his choice.
Source & version
Official text: Gazette of India via MHA (official) ↗
Official Gazette text: The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (46 of 2023), English PDF as hosted by Ministry of Home Affairs (mha.gov.in, file 250884_2_english_01042024.pdf). Extracted via pdftotext 26.07 -bbox and @nexlex/ingest gazette-bbox parser on 2026-07-14. Automated parse; structural validation + spot verification; full clause-level proofread pending.
Spotted a mistake in this text or its mapping? Report an issue with BNSS Section 340
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