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Indian Penal Code, 1860 · Chapter XI: Of False Evidence and Offences against Public Justice

Section 201: Causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information, to screen offender— if a capital offence; if punishable with imprisonment for life; if punishable with less than ten years' imprisonment

The Indian Penal Code, 1860 was repealed and replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 from 1 July 2024. It still applies to offences and proceedings from before that date.

Now in the BNS section 238 (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender)

In plain words

Knowing or having reason to believe an offence was committed, causing its evidence to disappear, or giving false information about it, to screen the offender from punishment is an offence. The punishment depends on the seriousness of the offence screened.

  • If the offence is punishable with death: imprisonment of either description for up to seven years, and a fine.
  • If punishable with imprisonment for life or up to ten years: up to three years, and a fine.
  • If punishable with less than ten years: up to one-fourth of the longest term for that offence, or fine, or both.

A simplified explanation, prepared with AI assistance from the official text below and checked automatically against it for numbers and cross-references. The official text is the law and prevails over this summary. Not legal advice.

Official text

Whoever, knowing or having reason to believe that an offence has been committed, causes any evidence of the commission of that offence to disappear, with the intention of screening the offender from legal punishment, or with that intention gives any information respecting the offence which he knows or believes to be false, if a capital offence.—shall, if the offence which he knows or believes to have been committed is punishable with death be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine; if punishable with imprisonment for life.—and if the offence is punishable with [imprisonment for life], or with imprisonment which may extend to ten years, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, and shall also be liable to fine; if punishable with less than ten years’ imprisonment.—and if the offence is punishable with imprisonment for any term not extending to ten years, shall be punished with imprisonment of the description provided for the offence, for a term which may extend to one-fourth part of the longest term of the imprisonment provided for the offence, or with fine, or with both.

Corresponding sections were matched by comparing the wording of both official texts, and for the IPC and BNS, also against a published correspondence table. Wording, punishments and structure often changed, so read both sections before relying on the match.

Source: India Code (Legislative Department), the text of the Act as it stood before its repeal. Words in square brackets [ ] were inserted or substituted by later amending Acts, and *** marks words omitted by an amendment. The amendment footnotes are not reproduced here.

Supreme Court judgments citing the section 201