CrPC · Chapter VI · Processes to compel appearance

CrPC section 72 in the BNSS

CrPC 72BNSS 74

CrPC section 72, “Warrants to whom directed”, is now BNSS section 74 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, in force from 1 July 2024.

What changed

From CrPC 72 to BNSS 74

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 72 Warrants to whom directed

(1) A warrant of arrest shall ordinarily be directed to one or more police officers; but the Court issuing such a warrant may, if its immediate execution is necessary and no police officer is immediately available, direct it to any other person or persons, and such person or persons shall execute the same.

(2) When a warrant is directed to more officers or persons than one, it may be executed by all, or by any one or more of them.

Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023

Section 74 Warrants to whom directed

(2) When a warrant is directed to more officers or persons than one, it may be executed by all, or by any one or more of them.

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amendment markers and footnotes of the official print are left out, so the old section reads as it stood when it was repealed; State amendments are not shown.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The BNSS repealed the CrPC from 1 July 2024 (section 531(1)).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