The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973

§240 — Framing of charge

(1) If, upon such consideration, examination, if any, and hearing, the Magistrate is of opinion that there is ground for presuming that the accused has committed an offence triable under this Chapter, which such Magistrate is competent to try and which, in his opinion, could be adequately punished by him, he shall frame in writing a charge against the accused. (2) The charge shall then be read and explained to the accused, and he shall be asked whether he pleads guilty of the offence charged or claims to be tried.

Old law ⇄ new law

Modifiedold law ⇄ new law

Old lawCRPC §240Framing of charge New lawBNSS §263Framing of charge

CRPC §240 → BNSS §263 per the official NCRB Sankalan table. Marked "(Change)" — substance modified; compare texts.

State amendments

This section has been amended in its application to Chhattisgarh. The text above is the central provision and is what applies everywhere else — these amendments are law only in the State that made them.

Chhattisgarh[Vide Chhattisgarh Act 13 of 2006, s. 5.]Read →Hide
Chhattisgarh In sub-section (2) of section 240 of the Principal Act, after the word “to the accused” the following shall be added: — “present either in person or through the medium of electronic video linkage in the presence of his pleader in the Court.”

Reproduced from the same official PDF as the section above, as the amending Act words it — not a consolidated State version of the section. Check the source before relying on it.

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Source & version

Official text: India Code (official) ↗

Official India Code text: The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974), English PDF (bitstream 123456789/15272/1/the_code_of_criminal_procedure,_1973.pdf, 1,879,339 bytes) fetched directly from indiacode.nic.in (Akamai edge, DNS via dns.google) on 2026-07-16. Extracted via pdftotext 26.07 -bbox and @nexlex/ingest inline parser. Repealed by BNSS 2023 w.e.f. 2024-07-01. Automated parse; footnotes/amendment history excluded; illustrations restored via illustration-aware re-extraction on 2026-07-19; spot-verified; full clause-level proofread pending.

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