Punishments Under the BNS, Including Community Service

Section 4 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) lists six kinds of punishment: death, imprisonment for life, imprisonment (rigorous or simple), forfeiture of property, fine and community service. The first five came over from Section 53 of the old Indian Penal Code; community service is new, and the BNS allows it for only six offences, such as petty theft by a first offender, drunken misconduct in public and defamation. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS) defines community service as unpaid work ordered by a court that benefits the community, but it does not yet say how many hours, what kind of work or who supervises it.

This explainer is for B.A. LL.B. and LL.B. students preparing for criminal law papers, and for any citizen who has read that "courts can now order community service" and wants to know what that really means. The BNS came into force on 1 July 2024, so every exam answer and every news report you read today should use BNS section numbers, with the IPC number only as a pointer.

What does Section 4 of the BNS actually say?

Section 4 opens with the words "The punishments to which offenders are liable under the provisions of this Sanhita are" and then lists:

1. Death, clause (a).
2. Imprisonment for life, clause (b).
3. Imprisonment, clause (c), of two descriptions: rigorous (with hard labour) and simple.
4. Forfeiture of property, clause (d).
5. Fine, clause (e).
6. Community service, clause (f), the only new item.

The old pointer is IPC Section 53. A useful habit for revision: write the BNS section first, then "(formerly IPC 53)" in brackets. That way you show the current law and still show you know where it came from.

Which offences carry community service?

Community service is not a general option the judge can pick for any crime. It applies only where the offence itself names it. In the BNS as enacted, that is six provisions:

• Section 202, public servant unlawfully engaging in trade: simple imprisonment up to one year, or fine, or both, or community service.
• Section 209, non-appearance in response to a proclamation under Section 84 of the BNSS: imprisonment up to three years, or fine, or both, or community service. Where a declaration has been made under Section 84(4) BNSS, the punishment rises to imprisonment up to seven years, with liability to fine, and community service is not an option.
• Section 226, attempting suicide to compel or restrain the exercise of lawful power: simple imprisonment up to one year, or fine, or both, or community service.
• Section 303(2), proviso, theft: where the stolen property is worth less than five thousand rupees, the person is convicted for the first time and the property or its value is returned, the offender "shall" be punished with community service.
• Section 355, misconduct in public by a drunken person: simple imprisonment up to twenty-four hours, or fine up to one thousand rupees, or both, or community service.
• Section 356(2), defamation: simple imprisonment up to two years, or fine, or both, or community service.

Notice the difference in language. In five of these sections community service is one choice among several ("or"). In the theft proviso the word is "shall", which commentators read as making it the required punishment once the three conditions are met. Take a simple example: a first-year student in Nagercoil who pockets a phone charger worth a few hundred rupees from a shop, is convicted for the first time and pays the shopkeeper back falls inside the proviso. A second conviction for theft does not.

How does the BNSS define community service, and who can order it?

The definition sits not in the BNS but in the Explanation to Section 23 of the BNSS (the provision on sentences Magistrates may pass, formerly CrPC Section 29). It reads: "Community service" shall mean the work which the Court may order a convict to perform as a form of punishment that benefits the community, for which he shall not be entitled to any remuneration.

Section 23 also gives Magistrates the power to impose it:

• A Magistrate of the first class may pass imprisonment up to three years, fine up to fifty thousand rupees, or both, or community service (Section 23(2)).
• A Magistrate of the second class may pass imprisonment up to one year, fine up to ten thousand rupees, or both, or community service (Section 23(3)).

So in practice, community service will usually be ordered by a Judicial Magistrate's court, because the offences listed above are minor ones tried at that level.

What happens if a person does not do the community service?

Section 8 of the BNS (formerly IPC Sections 63 to 70) deals with fines and default. It now also speaks of "default of community service". Under Section 8(4), the court may impose imprisonment in default. Under Section 8(5), where the offence is punishable with fine or community service, the default imprisonment must be simple, and the scale is:

• up to two months where the fine does not exceed five thousand rupees;
• up to four months where the fine does not exceed ten thousand rupees;
• up to one year in any other case.

This scale is built around the amount of a fine. Where a court orders only community service, there is no fine amount to measure against, and Bijendra Shandilya and Ankit Kumar, writing in LiveLaw on 22 August 2026, have pointed out that the default scheme fits awkwardly. That is a good point to raise in a critical answer.

How has the Supreme Court read the main punishments?

The Supreme Court has not, as far as we could confirm, laid down guidelines on community service under the BNS. Its leading decisions on punishment concern death and life imprisonment, and they still apply because the BNS kept those punishments:

• Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab, (1980) 2 SCC 684: a 4:1 majority upheld the death penalty but confined it to the "rarest of rare" cases, where life imprisonment is unquestionably inadequate, after weighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Under the old CrPC Section 354(3), the judge had to record "special reasons" for a death sentence.
• Swamy Shraddananda (2) v. State of Karnataka, (2008) 13 SCC 767: created a special category of sentence, imprisonment for the rest of natural life without remission, as an alternative to death.
• Union of India v. V. Sriharan, (2016) 7 SCC 1: a five-judge Constitution Bench approved that special category.
• Ramasrey @ Fakkad v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2026): on 29 July 2026 a Bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Augustine George Masih dismissed challenges to whole-life sentences without remission, holding that Sriharan had settled the question.
• Naval Kishore v. State of Punjab, 2026 INSC 1048: in a judgment of 24 September 2026 (Justices Aravind Kumar and Vipul M. Pancholi), the Court held that a Sessions Court can impose life imprisonment but cannot direct that the convict stay in prison for the rest of natural life; that special sentence is for the High Courts and the Supreme Court.

Where does community service stand in 2026?

We found no amendment to these provisions since they came into force. The gap is in detail. The BNS and BNSS do not say how many hours or days of service match a given term of imprisonment, what kinds of work count, or which authority supervises and certifies completion. Former Chief Justice U.U. Lalit raised exactly these questions in a Supreme Court Bar Association lecture on 24 September 2025, using defamation under Section 356(2) as his example and asking whether two years of imprisonment means two years of service, and called for legislative guidelines. We could not find a central rule or a Tamil Nadu notification setting such standards, so readers should check with the district court or the college legal aid clinic for current local practice.

How should you write this in an exam?

1. Start with the provision: "Section 4 BNS (formerly Section 53 IPC) lists six punishments."
2. List all six with clause letters (a) to (f).
3. Explain community service: definition in the Explanation to Section 23 BNSS, the six offences, and the mandatory language in the Section 303(2) proviso.
4. Add default consequences under Section 8(4) and (5) BNS.
5. Cite Bachan Singh (1980) and Sriharan (2016) for death and life imprisonment.
6. Close with a short critique: reformative aim, but no hours, no supervision rules and an uneasy fit with the fine based default scale.

Sources

• India Code: The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023: official record of Act 45 of 2023, enforced from 1 July 2024.
• BPR&D handbook on the BNS (hosted by the West Bengal Home Department): text of Sections 4 and 8 compared with the IPC.
• BPR&D note on community service under the BNS: the six offences carrying community service.
• Tripura Police: BNS and IPC comparison table: section mapping, including Section 4 to IPC 53.
• LiveLaw report on Ramasrey v. State of U.P. (2026): whole-life sentences and the Sriharan line of cases.
• LiveLaw: Sentence Without Bridle, Community Service Gaps in BNS and BNSS (22 August 2026): analysis of missing standards and the default problem.
• Supreme Court of India: Naval Kishore v. State of Punjab, 2026 INSC 1048 (judgment of 24 September 2026).
• LiveLaw: Ex-CJI U.U. Lalit on the lack of guidelines for community service (24 September 2025).