CrPC · Chapter II · Constitution of criminal courts and offices

CrPC section 20 in the BNSS

CrPC 20BNSS 14

CrPC section 20, “Executive Magistrates”, is now BNSS section 14 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, in force from 1 July 2024.

What changed

From CrPC 20 to BNSS 14

Now BNSS section 14, with the same rule; the references to metropolitan areas are dropped.

The official text

Old and new, side by side

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973

Section 20 Executive Magistrates

(1) In every district and in every metropolitan area, the State Government may appoint as many persons as it thinks fit to be Executive Magistrates and shall appoint one of them to be the District Magistrate.

(2) The State Government may appoint any Executive Magistrate to be an Additional District Magistrate, and such Magistrate shall have such of the powers of a District Magistrate under this Code or under any other law for the time being in force as may be directed by the State Government.

(3) Whenever, in consequence of the office of a District Magistrate becoming vacant, any officer succeeds temporarily to the executive administration of the district, such officer shall, pending the orders of the State Government, exercise all the powers and perform all the duties respectively conferred and imposed by this Code on the District Magistrate.

(4) The State Government may place an Executive Magistrate in charge of a sub-division and may relieve him of the charge as occasion requires; and the Magistrate so placed in charge of a sub-division shall be called the Sub-divisional Magistrate.

(4A) The State Government may, by general or special order and subject to such control and directions as it may deem fit to impose, delegate its powers under sub-section (4) to the District Magistrate.

(5) Nothing in this section shall preclude the State Government from conferring, under any law for the time being in force, on a Commissioner of Police, all or any of the powers of an Executive Magistrate in relation to a metropolitan area.

Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023

Section 14 Executive Magistrates

(1) In every district, the State Government may appoint as many persons as itthinks fit to be Executive Magistrates and shall appoint one of them to be the District Magistrate.

(2) The State Government may appoint any Executive Magistrate to be an Additional District Magistrate, and such Magistrate shall have such of the powers of a District Magistrate under this Sanhita or under any other law for the time being in force as may be directed by the State Government.

(5) The State Government may, by general or special order and subject to such control and directions as it may deem fit to impose, delegate its powers under sub-section (4) to the District Magistrate.

(6) Nothing in this section shall preclude the State Government from conferring, under any law for the time being in force, on a Commissioner of Police all or any of the powers of an Executive Magistrate.

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.