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CrPC · Chapter IV · Powers of superior officers of police, and aid to the Magistrates and the police

CrPC section 38 in the BNSS

CrPC 38BNSS 32

CrPC section 38, “Aid to person, other than police officer, executing warrant”, is now BNSS section 32 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, in force from 1 July 2024.

What changed

From CrPC 38 to BNSS 32

The words are the same as in the CrPC, apart from “Sanhita” for the Act’s own name and the new numbers of the sections it refers to.

The official text

Old and new, side by side

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973

Section 38 Aid to person, other than police officer, executing warrant

When a warrant is directed to a person other than a police officer, any other person may aid in the execution of such warrant, if the person to whom the warrant is directed be near at hand and acting in the execution of the warrant.

Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023

Section 32 Aid to person, other than police officer, executing warrant

When a warrant is directed to a person other than a police officer, any other person may aid in the execution of such warrant, if the person to whom the warrant is directed be near at hand and acting in the execution of the warrant.

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amendment markers and footnotes of the official print are left out, so the old section reads as it stood when it was repealed; State amendments are not shown.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The BNSS repealed the CrPC from 1 July 2024 (section 531(1)).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.

Sources

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