The Indian Penal Code

The IPC is the official Criminals Code of India. It is a comprehensive code intended to cover all substantive aspects of criminal Law. The code was drafted on the recommendations of first law commission of India established in 1834 under the Charter Act of 1833 under the chairmanship of Thomas Babington Macaulay.

It came into force in British India during the early British Raj period in 1862. However, it did not apply automatically in the Princely states, which had their own courts and legal systems until the 1940s.

History of the Indian Penal Code

The draft of the Indian Penal Code was prepared by the First Law Commission, chaired by Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1834 and was submitted to Governor-General of India Council in 1835.IPC is based on a simplified codification of the law of England at the time, elements were also derived from the Napoleonic Code and from Edward Livingston’s Louisiana Civil Code of 1825.

The first final draft of the Indian Penal Code was submitted to the Governor-General of India in Council in 1837, but the draft was again revised. The drafting was completed in 1850 and the Code was presented to the Legislative Council in 1856, but it did not take its place on the statute book of British India until a generation later, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

The draft then underwent a very careful revision at the hands of Barnes Peacock, who later became the first Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, and was passed into law on 6 October 1860. The Code came into force on 1 January 1862.

The code came into operation in Jammu and Kashmir on 31 October 2019, by virtue of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, and replaced the state’s Ranbir Penal Code.

Important Facts of IPC

The Indian Penal Code, 1860

                                                                   Citation                             –                         Act No. 45 of 1860
                                                                   Territorial extent          –                        India
                                                                   Enacted by                        –                       Imperial Legislative Council
                                                                   Enacted                            –                        6 October 1860
                                                                  Assented to                       –                       6 October 1860
                                                                  Commenced                      –                       1 January 1862

Structure of the Indian Penal Code

The Indian Penal Code of 1860, sub-divided into 23 chapters, comprises 511 sections.