Indian Penal Code

The Indian Penal Code,1860
Council of the Governor General of India
Citation	Act No. 45 of 1860
Territorial extent	India (except Jammu and Kashmir)
Enacted by	Legislative Council
Date enacted	6 October 1860
Date assented to	6 October 1860
Date commenced	1 January 1862
Committee report	First Law Commission
Amendments
see Amendments
Related legislation
Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973
Status: Substantially amended

The Indian Penal Code (IPC) is the main criminal code of India. It is a comprehensive code intended to cover all substantive aspects of criminal law. The code was drafted in 1860 on the recommendations of first law commission of India established in 1834 under the Charter Act of 1833 under the Chairmanship of Thomas Babington Macaulay. It came into force in British India during the early British Raj period in 1862. However, it did not apply automatically in the Princely states, which had their own courts and legal systems until the 1940s. The Code has since been amended several times and is now supplemented by other criminal provisions.

After the partition of the British Indian Empire, the Indian Penal Code was inherited by its successor states, the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan, where it continues independently as the Pakistan Penal Code. The Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) applicable in Jammu and Kashmir is also based on this Code. After the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan, the code continued in force there. The Code was also adopted by the British colonial authorities in Colonial Burma, Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), the Straits Settlements (now part of Malaysia), Singapore and Brunei, and remains the basis of the criminal codes in those countries.

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