IPC · Chapter XX · Of offences relating to marriage

IPC section 497 in the BNS

IPC 497Not carried over

IPC section 497, “Adultery”, was not carried into the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which replaced the IPC on 1 July 2024.

What changed

Why there is no BNS section

Not carried into the BNS, which has no offence of adultery. In Joseph Shine v. Union of India (2018) the Supreme Court had already struck section 497 down.

The official text

Old and new, side by side

Indian Penal Code, 1860

Section 497 Adultery

Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery, and shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both. In such case the wife shall not be punishable as an abettor.

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amendment markers and footnotes of the official print are left out, so the old section reads as it stood when it was repealed; State amendments are not shown.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The BNS repealed the IPC from 1 July 2024 (section 358(1)). The repeal does not reach back: under section 358(2), penalties and punishments incurred for offences committed against the IPC still stand, and proceedings for them may be started, continued and enforced as if the IPC had not been repealed. An act done before 1 July 2024 is therefore dealt with under the IPC section; an act done on or after that date, under the BNS.