Criminal intimidation
Section 351 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 deals with criminal intimidation. Whoever threatens another by any means, with any injury to his person, reputation or property, or to the person or reputation of any one in whom that person is interested, with intent to cause alarm to that person, or to cause that person to do any act which he is not legally bound to do, or to omit The Act came into force on 01 Jul 2024.
(1) Whoever threatens another by any means, with any injury to his person, reputation or property, or to the person or reputation of any one in whom that person is interested, with intent to cause alarm to that person, or to cause that person to do any act which he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do any act which that person is legally entitled to do, as the means of avoiding the execution of such threat, commits criminal intimidation.
Explanation.---A threat to injure the reputation of any deceased person in whom the person threatened is interested, is within this section.
Illustration.
A, for the purpose of inducing B to resist from prosecuting a civil suit, threatens to burn Bs house. A is guilty of criminal intimidation.
(2) Whoever commits the offence of criminal intimidation shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.
(3) Whoever commits the offence of criminal intimidation by threatening to cause death or grievous hurt, or to cause the destruction of any property by fire, or to cause an offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years, or to impute unchastity to a woman, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, or with fine, or with both.
(4) Whoever commits the offence of criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication, or having taken precaution to conceal the name or abode of the person from whom the threat comes, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, in addition to the punishment provided for the offence under sub-section (1).
Section 351, The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (Act 45 of 2023).
Replaces a provision of the Indian Penal Code
IPC 503 Criminal intimidation Text carried over almost unchanged 90%
Measured by comparing the text of the two provisions, not taken from an official correspondence table — there is no machine-readable one. See both texts side by side before relying on it.
Both regimes are live. The repealed enactment still governs what happened while it was in force. We never redirect one to the other.
Cross-references
Extracted from the operative text of the enactments themselves. Every destination below exists in our corpus.
Referred to by 4
- Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (Draft stage of translated version) s. 243
- Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (Draft stage of translated version) s. 283
- Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita s. 243 Trial for more than one offence
- Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita s. 283 Power to try summarily
How this offence is classified
From the First Schedule to the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, which classifies every offence under the Sanhita. Cognizable means a police officer may arrest without warrant; bailable means bail is a matter of right rather than of the court's discretion. This section is classified 3 ways.
| Offence | Punishment | Cognizable | Bailable | Triable by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal intimidation. | Imprisonment for 2 years, or fine, or both. | Non-cognizable. | Bailable. | Any Magistrate. |
| If threat be to cause death or grievous hurt, etc. | Imprisonment for 7 years, or fine, or both. | Non-cognizable. | Bailable. | Magistrate of the first class. |
| Criminal intimidation by anonymous communication or having taken precaution to conceal whence the threat comes. | Imprisonment for 2 years, in addition to the punishment under section 351(1). | Non-cognizable. | Bailable. | Magistrate of the first class. |
Related judgements & precedents
These are some judgments that construed this section, and hold precedence value. They hold authority on how to read, interpret and use this section.
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Manik Taneja v. State of Karnataka
Decided under Indian Penal Code 503, which this section replaces. The court did not have this Act before it.
Court's Decision & Legal Precedent
Judgement of Main Case order-14.pdf 2015-01-20 DATE VERIFIED. Crl A 141/2015. Banumathi/Gowda. A Facebook comment about hospital treatment does not, without more, make out IPC 353 (assault or criminal force to deter a public servant) or IPC 503/506 criminal intimidation (intent to cause alarm). Mere words without the statutory ingredients do not sustain the FIR. CrPC 482 already filled — do not remap.
On this section: Successor of IPC 503 (mapping.csv near-identical, score 0.9). The intent-to-cause-alarm intimidation ingredients carry to BNS 351. Do not also map IPC 506→351.
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Badrinarayana Jaganathan vs The State of Karnataka
Decided under Indian Penal Code 503, which this section replaces. The court did not have this Act before it.
Court's Decision & Legal Precedent
Criminal proceedings initiated on allegations that fail to disclose prima facie ingredients of the offences charged, where the underlying dispute is fundamentally civil in nature (employment termination), and where procedural irregularities and discrepancies suggest deliberate misclassification of the matter to transform a civil dispute into criminal proceedings for purposes of coercion or settlement, constitute an abuse of legal process and travesty of justice warranting quashing of the chargesheet and proceedings under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. The essential ingredients of criminal offences must be strictly established: Section 323 requires voluntary act of causing actual hurt; Sections 504 and 509 require specific intentional insult with contextual details and intent to provoke or shock sense of decency; Section 506 requires threat with intent to cause alarm, not mere assertion of consequences of lawful termination. Mere allegations without substantiation of these ingredients do not justify continuation of criminal proceedings.
On this section: Definition of criminal intimidation - requires act of threatening to cause injury to person, reputation, or property with intent to cause alarm
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Jairam Ramesh vs Union of India and Ors. Ministry of Law and Justice Secretary
Decided under Indian Penal Code 503, which this section replaces. The court did not have this Act before it.
Court's Decision & Legal Precedent
The Right to Privacy is a fundamental right guaranteed under the Indian Constitution, primarily derived from Articles 14, 19, and 21. This right encompasses personal autonomy, informational privacy, bodily integrity, and decisional privacy. While privacy is a fundamental right, it is not absolute and can be restricted by law only on grounds enumerated in the Constitution and only through a measure that is necessary, proportionate, and least restrictive. The state must provide legal frameworks governing the collection, storage, use, and protection of personal data, and any scheme affecting privacy must comply with the principles of proportionality and human dignity.
On this section: Existing criminal law protections for privacy and defamation
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Ram Swarup vs Mohd. Javed Razack
Decided under Indian Penal Code 503, which this section replaces. The court did not have this Act before it.
Court's Decision & Legal Precedent
A Metropolitan Magistrate may take cognizance of a defamation complaint based on a prima facie case established through examination of the complaint and the complainant on oath, without mandatory referral to police under Section 156(3) CrPC. Furthermore, a complainant who is himself addressed with defamatory words has the legal standing to lodge a complaint under Section 199 CrPC, regardless of whether defamatory words were also used against a third party. The Magistrate's discretionary exercise of cognizance, once made based on prima facie case establishment, cannot be subsequently challenged on procedural grounds.
On this section: Definition of criminal intimidation by words; applied to assess the abusive language allegedly used by the appellant
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Govind Ramnath Jadhav vs State of Maharashtra
Court's Decision & Legal Precedent
When co-accused against whom similar allegations are made have been released on bail and the applicant has no criminal antecedents and has undergone significant incarceration, the principle of parity applies.
On this section: Criminal Intimidation.
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Rameshwaram Santhoshamma vs The State of Andhra Pradesh
Decided under Indian Penal Code 503, which this section replaces. The court did not have this Act before it.
Court's Decision & Legal Precedent
When the allegations in a complaint disclose only non-cognizable offences, the police are not obligated to register an FIR, and their refusal to do so does not constitute illegal or arbitrary action. The police act within their legal authority when they decline to register FIRs for non-cognizable offences, and the proper remedy for the complainant is to file a private complaint before the Judicial Magistrate.
On this section: Definition of criminal intimidation - threat with intent to cause alarm or to cause a person to do or omit an act. Applied to analyze whether the alleged conduct constitutes criminal intimidation.
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Manoj Kumar Sharma vs State
Decided under Indian Penal Code 503, which this section replaces. The court did not have this Act before it.
Court's Decision & Legal Precedent
For an offence under Section 315 IPC to be complete, it is not sufficient that an act is done with the intention to prevent a child from being born alive or to cause it to die after birth; the act must actually result in the prevention of the child being born alive or the death of the child after birth. If the child is born alive despite the alleged attempt, the offence under Section 315 is not made out, but an attempt charge under Section 315 read with Section 511 IPC may be appropriate. Additionally, a threat coupled with an overt act of violence constitutes criminal intimidation under Section 506 IPC, but the charge should only apply to those persons who made the threat or committed the overt act.
On this section: The court referred to Section 503 IPC (Definition of Criminal Intimidation) to explain that intimidation requires a threat that would cause alarm or apprehension in the mind of the person threatened.
The holding above is the ratio decidendi as extracted from the judgment by eCourts India, reproduced unaltered — it is a rendering of the court's reasoning, not a substitute for its words. Read the order itself before relying on it.
Judgments citing this section
These may be obiter dicta or a precedent, for you to study. These are the judgments where this section is quoted.
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… CORAM: HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE MADHU JAIN Madhu Jain, J. (Oral) - 1. This hearing has been done through hybrid mode. - 2. The present petition has been filed by the petitioner seeking regular bail in FIR No. 153/2026 registered at Police Station Rajouri Garden for offences punishable under Sections 308(6) and 351 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (hereinafter referred to as the "BNSS"). The prosecution case, in brief, is that the FIR came to be registered on the complaint of the father of one Ayush Arora alleging that the petitioner, along with other persons, had extorted money from the complainant's son by putting him …
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… Today, accused appeared before this Court. Perused charge-sheet. Primafacie, it appears that there is sufficient material to proceed against accused for offence punishable under section 75(1), 75(2), 79 and 351(2) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. The offence punishable under section 75(1) and 75(2) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 are exclusively triable by the Court of Sessions. Therefore, the case is required to be committed as per Section 232 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 to the Court of Hon'ble Sessions …
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… The petitioners seek issuance of a writ in the nature of Certiorari for quashing of the First Information Report bearing Case Crime No.0022 of 2025, under Sections 109, 115(2), 191(2), 352 and 351(3) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, Police Station Ram Janam Bhoomi, District Ayodhya. 3. Submission of learned counsel for petitioners is that Section 109 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 has wrongly been invoked against the petitioners as all the injuries suffered by the victims are simple in nature. Further …
Questions about Section 351
What have the courts held on Section 351 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita?
Manik Taneja v. State of Karnataka (20 Jan 2015) is the leading judgment on this section among those set out below, though it was decided under IPC 503, which this section replaced -- the court never mentioned this Act: Successor of IPC 503 (mapping.csv near-identical, score 0.9). The intent-to-cause-alarm intimidation ingredients carry to BNS 351. Do not also map IPC 506→351. Another 6 judgments on this section are set out below, 4 of them from the Supreme Court. They run from 2005 to 2026.
Is Section 351 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita bailable?
Bailable, under the First Schedule to the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023.
Is Section 351 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita cognizable?
Non-cognizable. "Cognizable" means a police officer may arrest without warrant; "non-cognizable" that they may not. An offence under this section is triable by Any Magistrate.
How do I find court cases under Section 351 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita?
In judgments and charge sheets this section is written several ways, and each form finds a different set of orders. These search the full text of every order eCourtsIndia holds, best matches first: BNS 351, section 351 BNS, section 351 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. People searching for it also type bns 351 3 section in hindi and bns 351 2 section in hindi. Each opens the full list of orders on eCourtsIndia, where it can be narrowed by court, year and outcome. 7 reported judgments on this section are set out on this page, beginning with Manik Taneja v. State of Karnataka (20 Jan 2015).
What should I read with Section 351 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and has it changed?
4 other provisions in this corpus refer back to it. It carries forward IPC 503 (Criminal intimidation), so the judgments decided under that provision are the case law on this one.
When did Section 351 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita come into force?
Section 351 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, cited as BNS 351, came into force on 01 Jul 2024, having been enacted on 25 Dec 2023. It is in force as at the date shown on this page.
Other sections of this Act
- 2. Definitions2199 words
- 356. Defamation1543 words
- 335. Making a false document1318 words
- 101. Murder1177 words
- 303. Theft1104 words
- 3. General explanations858 words
Source and method. Compiled from the enactments of Parliament and of the State legislatures as published on India Code, and republished together with commentary and other original matter under section 52(1)(q)(ii) of the Copyright Act, 1957. Structured, cross-referenced and maintained by eCourtsIndia. Text as in force on 14 Oct 2026. This page is not a substitute for legal advice.