CrPC · Chapter XII · Information to the police and their powers to investigate

CrPC section 166B in the BNSS

CrPC 166BBNSS 113

CrPC section 166B, “Letter of request from a country or place outside India to a Court or an authority for investigation in India”, is now BNSS section 113 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, in force from 1 July 2024.

What changed

From CrPC 166B to BNSS 113

Now BNSS section 113, with the same procedure; the references to Metropolitan Magistrates are dropped.

The official text

Old and new, side by side

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973

Section 166B Letter of request from a country or place outside India to a Court or an authority for investigation in India

(1) Upon receipt of a letter of request from a Court or an authority in a country or place outside India competent to issue such letter in that country or place for the examination of any person or production of any document or thing in relation to an offence under investigation in that country or place, the Central Government may, if it thinks fit—

(i) forward the same to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate or Chief Judicial Magistrate or such Metropolitan Magistrate or Judicial Magistrate as he may appoint in this behalf, who shall thereupon summon the person before him and record his statement or cause the document or thing to be produced; or

(ii) send the letter to any police officer for investigation, who shall thereupon investigate into the offence in the same manner, as if the offence had been committed within India.

(2) All the evidence taken or collected under sub-section (1), or authenticated copies thereof or the thing so collected, shall be forwarded by the Magistrate or police officer, as the case may be, to the Central Government for transmission to the Court or the authority issuing the letter of request, in such manner as the Central Government may deem fit.

Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023

Section 113 Letter of request from a country or place outside India to a Court or an authority for investigation in India

(i) forward the same to the Chief Judicial Magistrate or Judicial Magistrate as he may appoint in this behalf, who shall thereupon summon the person before him and record his statement or cause the document or thing to be produced; or

(ii) send the letter to any police officer for investigation, who shall thereupon investigate into the offence in the same manner, as if the offence had been committed within India.

The texts are India Code’s. The amendment markers and footnotes of the official print are left out, so the old section reads as it stood when it was repealed; State amendments are not shown. The PDFs linked below carry the full history.

Old law or new?

Which one applies to a case

The BNSS repealed the CrPC from 1 July 2024 (section 531(1)). Any appeal, application, trial, inquiry or investigation pending immediately before that date is disposed of under the CrPC as it then stood, as if the BNSS had not come into force (section 531(2)(a)). Anything not pending on that date follows the BNSS.