A Critical Analysis of the Provisions Relating to Women Under the Repealed IPC and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023

The replacement of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) represents a major restructuring of India's substantive criminal law. The BNS was enacted on 25 December 2023 and came into force on 1 July 2024, replacing the IPC as the principal penal statute, subject to statutory savings and transitional issues. Women-centred criminal law constitutes an important part of this transition because the IPC contained a number of specific provisions dealing with sexual offences, cruelty within marriage, dowry death, offences against modesty, stalking, voyeurism, forced marriage, miscarriage and related forms of violence. The BNS retains several of these protections but reorganises and renumbers them and, in some areas, modifies their formulation, scope and punishment. For example, the IPC provisions dealing with assault intended to outrage a woman's modesty, sexual harassment, disrobing, voyeurism, stalking and insult to the modesty of a woman have broadly corresponding provisions in sections 74 to 79 of the BNS. Similarly, IPC section 498A relating to cruelty by a husband or his relatives has been substantially carried into sections 85 and 86 of the BNS, while dowry death appears in section 80. This paper critically analyses the continuities and changes between the repealed IPC and the BNS with particular reference to women's rights and protection from gender-based violence. It examines rape law, sexual harassment, voyeurism, stalking, disrobing, dowry death, cruelty, offences against women in marriage, forced marriage, acid violence and emerging forms of sexual exploitation. It also identifies areas in which the BNS consolidates earlier protections and areas where substantive debates remain, especially concerning the marital rape exception, the formulation of certain sexual offences, evidentiary and procedural coordination, and the need for gender-sensitive implementation. The study is doctrinal and analytical in nature and relies on statutory materials, official legislative sources and relevant legal literature. It concludes that the BNS retains much of the protective architecture developed under the IPC but simultaneously creates an opportunity to reassess whether criminal law adequately responds to contemporary forms of violence against women. The effectiveness of the new framework will therefore depend not only on statutory text but also on interpretation, investigation, prosecution, victim support and implementation.