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Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023

Section 43, BNSS: Arrest how made

Pundora · Published 3 October 2026

Section 43 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, in the Act's own words, with the CrPC provision it replaces.

What it replaces

BNSS provisionCrPC provisionRelation
Section 43Section 46corresponds

From the Bureau of Police Research and Development's official comparison summary (source below). The whole table: CrPC to BNSS.

The section

43. Arrest how made.

(1) In making an arrest the police officer or other person making the same shall actually touch or confine the body of the person to be arrested, unless there be a submission to the custody by word or action: Provided that where a woman is to be arrested, unless the circumstances indicate to the contrary, her submission to custody on an oral intimation of arrest shall be presumed and, unless the circumstances otherwise require or unless the police officer is a female, the police officer shall not touch the person of the woman for making her arrest. (2) If such person forcibly resists the endeavour to arrest him, or attempts to evade the arrest, such police officer or other person may use all means necessary to effect the arrest. (3) The police officer may, keeping in view the nature and gravity of the offence, use handcuff while making the arrest of a person or while producing such person before the court who is a habitual or repeat offender, or who escaped from custody, or who has committed offence of organised crime, terrorist act, drug related crime, or illegal possession of arms and ammunition, murder, rape, acid attack, counterfeiting of coins and currency-notes, human trafficking, sexual offence against children, or offence against the State. (4) Nothing in this section gives a right to cause the death of a person who is not accused of an offence punishable with death or with imprisonment for life. (5) Save in exceptional circumstances, no woman shall be arrested after sunset and before sunrise, and where such exceptional circumstances exist, the woman police officer shall, by making a written report, obtain the prior permission of the Magistrate of the first class within whose local jurisdiction the offence is committed or the arrest is to be made.

The text is India Code's consolidated text as loaded into Pundora's statute corpus on 1 September 2026. A section quoted in a draft checked by Pundora is checked against this text.

Sources

  1. India Code: Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, section 43 (read 1 September 2026)
  2. Bureau of Police Research and Development: comparison summary, BNSS to CrPC (read 1 September 2026)

The Act's own words, from India Code. If the text here differs from the Gazette, the Gazette governs; write to contact@pundora.in and it will be corrected and dated.