Theft, Snatching, Extortion, Robbery & Dacoity Under BNS 2023 — Sections 303 to 313 Explained

Study Notes by Akinchan Aggarwal, Advocate — B.A. (Hons.) Gold Medalist, LL.B., LL.M. (Disputes Resolution), UGC–NET, Ph.D. (pursuing)

A man takes your phone from your hand and walks off. What offence is that?

Until 30 June 2024, the honest answer was: it depends, and nobody could quite tell you. Some courts called it theft under s 379 IPC. Some called it robbery under s 392, because a tug on the hand is "hurt". Most FIRs simply picked one and hoped. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 has now given that act its own name and its own section — snatching, s 304 — and it is the first new offence added to this part of the criminal law in one hundred and sixty-four years.

That single change is a useful way into the whole chapter. Theft, snatching, extortion, robbery and dacoity are not five unrelated crimes. They are one ladder. You start at theft, and each additional fact — a snatch, a threat, instant violence, five men — pushes you up a rung, and the punishment roughly doubles at every step.

The BNS position in one line: the definitions of theft, extortion, robbery and dacoity have been carried over from the IPC word for word. What changed is the packaging and the punishment — a new offence of snatching, a much wider aggravated-theft section, community service for petty first-time theft, extortion punishment more than doubled, and a mandatory minimum for dacoity with murder.

Contents

1. The Section Map — IPC to BNS
2. The Ladder: One Offence, Five Rungs
3. Theft — the Five Ingredients
4. What Can Be Stolen
5. Possession, Not Ownership
6. Dishonest Intention — and Why Borrowing Can Be Theft
7. Bona Fide Claim of Right — the Complete Defence
8. What the BNS Changed About Theft
9. Snatching — the New Section 304
10. Extortion — Section 308
11. Theft v. Extortion v. Robbery — the Master Table
12. Robbery — and the Two Words That Decide It
13. Dacoity — the Arithmetic of Five
14. Deadly Weapons — Sections 311 and 312
15. Punishment and Classification
16. Points to Remember
17. Frequently Asked Questions

1. The Section Map — IPC to BNS

Chapter XVII of the Sanhita, "Of Offences Against Property", opens with these provisions. Print this table and keep it in front of you; almost every mistake in this area is a numbering mistake.

Offence	IPC, 1860	BNS, 2023
Theft — definition	s 378	s 303(1)
Theft — punishment	s 379	s 303(2)
Snatching	No equivalent	s 304
Theft in dwelling house / transport / place of worship / Govt. property	s 380 (dwelling only)	s 305
Theft by clerk or servant	s 381	s 306
Theft after preparation for causing death, hurt or restraint	s 382	s 307
Extortion — definition	s 383	s 308(1)
Extortion — punishment	s 384	s 308(2)
Putting in fear of injury to commit extortion	s 385	s 308(3)
Putting in fear of death / grievous hurt to commit extortion	s 387	s 308(4)
Extortion by fear of death or grievous hurt	s 386	s 308(5)
Extortion by threat of accusation of a grave offence	s 388	s 308(6)
Putting in fear of such accusation to commit extortion	s 389	s 308(7)
Robbery — definition	s 390	s 309(1)–(3)
Robbery — punishment	s 392	s 309(4)
Attempt to commit robbery	s 393	s 309(5)
Voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery	s 394	s 309(6)
Dacoity — definition	s 391	s 310(1)
Dacoity — punishment	s 395	s 310(2)
Dacoity with murder	s 396	s 310(3)
Preparation to commit dacoity	s 399	s 310(4)
Assembling for the purpose of committing dacoity	s 402	s 310(5)
Belonging to a gang of dacoits	s 400	s 310(6)
Robbery or dacoity with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt	s 397	s 311
Attempt to commit robbery or dacoity when armed with a deadly weapon	s 398	s 312
Belonging to a gang of robbers or thieves	s 401	s 313

Note the compression. Twenty-five IPC sections have become eleven BNS sections. Nothing was deleted — the drafters simply gathered every provision on a single subject into one numbered section with sub-sections. Everything on extortion now lives in s 308; everything on dacoity in s 310. In practice this means you must now cite the sub-section, not just the section. "Charged under s 308 BNS" tells a court nothing; "s 308(5)" tells it everything.

2. The Ladder: One Offence, Five Rungs

Pillai treats theft and extortion in one chapter and robbery and dacoity in the next, and the reason is structural. Section 309(1) of the Sanhita says it outright: "In all robbery there is either theft or extortion." Robbery is not a free-standing crime. It is theft or extortion plus violence. Dacoity is robbery plus numbers.

Rung	The extra fact	Section	Maximum
Theft	Dishonest moving of movable property	s 303	3 years
Snatching	+ the taking is sudden, quick or forcible	s 304	3 years (non-bailable)
Extortion	+ the victim hands it over out of fear	s 308	7 years
Robbery	+ death, hurt or restraint, or fear of it instantly	s 309	10 years (14 on a highway at night)
Dacoity	+ five or more persons acting conjointly	s 310	Life

Read down that middle column and you have the entire chapter. Every examination problem in this area is really asking: which rung?

3. Theft — the Five Ingredients

Section 303(1), BNS reproduces s 378 IPC exactly:

"Whoever, intending to take dishonestly any movable property out of the possession of any person without that person's consent, moves that property in order to such taking, is said to commit theft."

The classic analysis is that of the Supreme Court in K.N. Mehra v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1957 SC 369 — the case of the two air-force cadets who took off in a Harvard T-22 instead of the Dakota they were authorised to fly, an hour before their permitted slot, and landed in Pakistan. The Court held that theft consists in:

"(1) moving a movable property of a person out of his possession without his consent; (2) the moving being in order to taking of the property with a dishonest intention. Thus: (1) the absence of the person's consent at the time of moving; and (2) the presence of dishonest intention in so taking and at the time are the essential ingredients of the offence of theft."

Broken out, there are five elements:

1. It must be movable property;
2. It must be in the possession of someone;
3. There must be a dishonest intention to take it out of that possession;
4. The taking must be without consent; and
5. There must be a moving in order to such taking.

Two points from Mehra repay attention. First, the cadets' later approach to the Indian High Commissioner in Karachi did not negative the offence — the dishonest intention is judged at the moment of moving, and a later change of heart is irrelevant. Second, Mehra had been given consent to fly — but consent to fly a Dakota at 6 a.m. is not consent to fly a Harvard at 5 a.m. Consent is specific to what was consented to.

4. What Can Be Stolen

"Movable property" is defined in s 2(21) BNS (s 22 IPC) as property of every description except land and things attached to the earth. But Explanations 1 and 2 to s 303 add a crucial rider: a thing attached to the earth becomes movable the instant it is severed, and the act of severance is itself the theft. Cut down a neighbour's tree meaning to take it, and the offence is complete at the cut.

Subject	Position
Trees, stones, clay, sand	Theft once severed from the earth. A house cannot be stolen — its materials can.
Animals	Yes. But not ferae naturae, and not abandoned animals. A bull dedicated to an idol and left to roam remains the temple trustees' property and can be stolen; a bull set at large by religious usage cannot.
Fish	Free in rivers and open tanks — no theft. Trapped in a pond from which they cannot escape — theft. Chandi Kumar Das v. Abanidhar Roy, AIR 1965 SC 585.
Human corpse	Generally not the subject of theft. Shrouds and coffins are — they belong to those who buried the deceased.
Electricity	Not movable property. Avtar Singh v. State of Punjab, AIR 1965 SC 666. Theft of electricity is punished today under s 135 of the Electricity Act, 2003, not under the theft section.
Water	Not while running free. Once reduced to possession — in a canal under control, or in pipes — it can be stolen.
Cattle	Removing grazing cattle is theft. Driving them to the pound is not. Removing your own cattle from the pound without paying the fees is theft — you deprive the pound-keeper of his fees.

The electricity point is the one most often got wrong in interviews. It is a rare instance where the Supreme Court held that a thing everyone calls "stolen" is not, as a matter of law, capable of being stolen at all.

5. Possession, Not Ownership

This is the single most important idea in the chapter, and the one that produces the most counter-intuitive results. Theft protects possession, not title. The section never mentions the owner.

Three consequences follow.

(a) You can steal your own property

Illustrations (j) and (k) to s 303 say so plainly. If you have pawned your watch to Z, and take it back from him without paying, you commit theft of your own watch. If Z lawfully retains it as security for a repair bill and you snatch it away, likewise. The property is yours; the possession was lawfully his.

(b) A thief can be the victim of theft

If X steals A's goods and Z then steals them from X, both X and Z commit theft, and in A's absence X can prosecute Z. The law protects even a vicious possession as against a stranger.

(c) Custody is not possession

Where a lady handed money to a stranger standing at a ticket window so that he might buy her a ticket, and he ran off with it, this was theft — she never parted with dominion, she merely used his hand instead of her own. Contrast illustration (e): where the plate was genuinely entrusted to a warehouse-keeper and he sold it, the plate had left the owner's possession, so it was criminal breach of trust, not theft.

The husband-and-wife rule. There is no presumption in India that spouses are one person. A wife who removes her husband's exclusive property with dishonest intention commits theft, and vice versa. But a Hindu woman cannot steal her own stridhan — it is hers exclusively — while her husband can be convicted of stealing it from her. Nor is there theft of property the two jointly possess.

6. Dishonest Intention — and Why Borrowing Can Be Theft

Intention is the gist of the offence, and it must exist at the moment of moving. "Dishonestly" means with the intention of causing wrongful gain to one person or wrongful loss to another (s 2(7) BNS; s 24 IPC).

The most examined proposition in this chapter comes from Pyare Lal Bhargava v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1963 SC 1094. A government superintendent took a file home for a day, allowed papers to be removed and inserted, and then put the file back. Theft, said the Supreme Court:

To commit theft one need not take movable property permanently out of the possession of another with the intention not to return it. It is enough if he takes it out of that possession though he intended to return it later.

This is where Indian law parts company decisively with English larceny, which required an intention to permanently deprive. In India, temporary deprivation is enough, and the Supreme Court confirmed in State of Maharashtra v. Vishwanath Tukaram Umale, AIR 1979 SC 1825, that even a transient transfer of possession will do.

But dishonesty is still required, and its absence acquits:

• A man who found a stray pony, rode it and brought it back — no theft.
• A man who took another's cycle believing his own was missing, and returned it — no theft.
• An estate employee who seized poachers' nets and held them pending his employer's orders — no theft.
• In Mohar Singh v. State of Rajasthan, (1980) Supp SCC 655, the accused snatched a revolver to prevent further bloodshed and surrendered it to the police at once — no theft.

Conversely, and importantly for practitioners: a creditor who seizes his debtor's goods to force payment commits theft. So does a person who takes a child's books to lure him to his house. Wrongful gain is not required if wrongful loss is caused.

The hire-purchase problem

When a financier seizes a vehicle on default, is it theft? The High Courts of Bombay, Delhi, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Madras and Patna have said no. The Supreme Court in K.A. Mathai v. Kora Bibbikutty, (1996) 7 SCC 212 said yes; in Charanjit Singh Chadha v. Sudhir Mehra, AIR 2001 SC 3721 it said no, for want of dishonest intention. The safer proposition is the older one from H.J. Ramson v. Triloki Nath: the agreement may reserve a right to seize, but it cannot authorise seizure by force from a driver or cleaner, who have no authority to consent on the owner's behalf. Reserve the right, then enforce it through a court.

7. Bona Fide Claim of Right — the Complete Defence

If property is removed in assertion of a claim of right, however ill-founded the claim, there is no theft. A bona fide claim of right postulates want of mens rea and is a complete defence.

Hidayatullah J. put it in Suvvari Sanyasi Apparao v. Boddepalli Lakshminarayana, AIR 1962 SC 586:

"An act does not amount to theft unless there be not only no legal right, but no appearance or colour of a legal right... If there be in the prisoner, any fair pretence of property or right, or if it be brought into doubt at all, the Court will direct an acquittal."

In Ram Ekbal Rai v. Jaldhari Pandey, AIR 1972 SC 949, parties had litigated for years over a plot; the complainant's possession was largely symbolic; the accused cut the standing crop under a bona fide belief of entitlement. No theft.

The limit is equally clear: the claim must be genuine, not a pretence. Mere assertion of a right, or the bare existence of a doubt, is not enough — the claim must be shown on evidence to be fair and honest. As Pillai notes with some feeling, litigants everywhere are eager to cut the Gordian knot of protracted civil litigation by launching a prosecution for theft. This defence is the courts' answer to that.

8. What the BNS Changed About Theft

The definition is untouched. Four things around it are not.

(a) Community service for petty first-time theft

The proviso to s 303(2) is new to Indian criminal law. Where the value of the stolen property is less than five thousand rupees and the person is a first-time convict, then on return of the property or its value, the sentence is community service. This is the first appearance of community service as a substantive sentence in the general penal law of India, and it is confined to exactly this situation.

(b) A mandatory minimum for repeat offenders

Section 303(2) also provides that on a second or subsequent conviction for theft, the sentence is rigorous imprisonment of not less than one year, extending to five years, with fine. Under s 379 IPC there was no such distinction — a tenth conviction attracted the same three-year ceiling as the first.

(c) Aggravated theft widened well beyond the dwelling house

Section 380 IPC covered theft in a building, tent or vessel used as a human dwelling or for custody of property. Section 305 BNS covers five categories:

1. any building, tent or vessel used as a human dwelling or for the custody of property;
2. any means of transport used for the transport of goods or passengers;
3. any article or goods from any such means of transport;
4. any idol or icon in a place of worship; and
5. any property of the Government or of a local authority.

Clauses (b) to (e) are all new. Vehicle theft, theft of luggage from a train or bus, idol theft and theft of government property each now carry seven years instead of three. For anyone practising in the trial courts this is the most consequential change in the chapter, because it moves an enormous volume of everyday cases into a higher slab.

(d) The "wandering gang" is gone

Section 401 IPC punished belonging to any "wandering or other gang of persons associated for the purpose of habitually committing theft or robbery". Section 313 BNS drops the word "wandering" altogether. It is a small edit with a long history behind it — that vocabulary descended from the Criminal Tribes legislation, and its removal is one of the quieter de-colonising touches in the Sanhita.

9. Snatching — the New Section 304

Section 304(1): "Theft is snatching if, in order to commit theft, the offender suddenly or quickly or forcibly seizes or secures or grabs or takes away from any person or from his possession any movable property."

Section 304(2): "Whoever commits snatching, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, and shall also be liable to fine."

Read that definition carefully, because its structure is unusual and easily missed.

Snatching is a species of theft, not a separate genus. The opening words are "Theft is snatching if" — exactly the grammar used in s 309(2) for "Theft is robbery if". So every ingredient of theft must first be made out: movable property, possession, dishonest intention, absence of consent, moving. Only then does the manner of taking — sudden, quick or forcible — convert theft into snatching.

The maximum is the same as for simple theft: three years. This surprises people. If the punishment is identical, what has been achieved?

Three things.

1. A named offence. Chain-snatching, phone-snatching and mobile-grab cases had no home of their own. They will now be registered, tried and — critically — counted as what they are.
2. Bail. Simple theft and snatching are both cognizable and non-bailable, but the charge itself now signals a street offence rather than a shop-lifting, and courts approach the bail question with that in front of them.
3. It closes the s 309 argument in the police station. Under the IPC, prosecutors regularly stretched "hurt" to make a snatch into robbery, and defence counsel regularly argued it down to theft. Section 304 gives the intermediate act its own label.

Where the line still lies. If the snatch causes or is intended to cause hurt — a victim dragged along the road, a torn earlobe, a fall from a two-wheeler — you are no longer in s 304. You are in s 309, robbery, and if hurt is actually caused, s 309(6), which carries life imprisonment. Snatching is the rung below violence; the moment violence appears, the ladder moves.

10. Extortion — Section 308

Section 308(1): "Whoever intentionally puts any person in fear of any injury to that person, or to any other, and thereby dishonestly induces the person so put in fear to deliver to any person any property, or valuable security, or anything signed or sealed which may be converted into a valuable security, commits extortion."

Three ingredients: (i) intentionally putting a person in fear of injury; (ii) dishonestly inducing him thereby; (iii) to deliver property or a valuable security.

Note what is not required. The fear need not be of bodily harm. "Injury" is defined in s 2(14) BNS (s 44 IPC) as any harm illegally caused to a person in body, mind, reputation or property. Fear of divine punishment will not do — the injury must be one the accused can himself inflict or cause to be inflicted. Fear of disgrace is enough.

• Purshottam Jethanand v. State of Kutch, AIR 1954 SC 700 — a police jamadar withheld a returning traveller's passport and demanded ₹800 for its return. Extortion: there was an implied threat of prosecution, and wrongful withholding of the passport was itself a fear of injury.
• Romesh Chandra Arora v. State, AIR 1960 SC 154 — nude photographs of a man's daughter, and a demand for hush money on threat of circulating them to relatives.
• Gurusharan Singh v. State of Punjab, (1996) 10 SCC 190 — money demanded to buy weapons for terrorists, with threats of consequences.

And the important negative authority: R.S. Nayak v. A.R. Antulay, AIR 1986 SC 2045. The Chief Minister of Maharashtra pressed sugar co-operatives to donate to a trust while their demands were pending before Government. The Supreme Court held the ingredients of extortion were not made out — a promise to do something one is not legally bound to do is not a threat of injury within the section. Whatever else that conduct was, it was not s 383.

Nor will words alone always suffice. The Patna High Court in Ramjee Singh v. State of Bihar, (1987) Cr LJ 137 required "some visible overt act" reflecting that the victim was in fact put in fear of death or grievous hurt; a bare demand in broad daylight, in the presence of others, without any physical act, was held not to attract the section.

The punishment jump — 3 years to 7

Under s 384 IPC extortion carried three years, or fine, or both. Under s 308(2) BNS it carries seven years, or fine, or both. The definition did not move by a comma; the ceiling more than doubled. Extortion is now punished on a par with aggravated theft and just below robbery — a considered recalibration of where the Sanhita places the overbearing of a victim's will.

11. Theft v. Extortion v. Robbery — the Master Table

Learn this table and the rest of the chapter follows.

Point	Theft — s 303	Extortion — s 308	Robbery — s 309
Consent	Absent altogether	Obtained — but by overpowering the will	Either (it is theft or extortion, aggravated)
Delivery	Offender takes	Victim delivers	Offender may take by force
Subject matter	Movable property only	Property and valuable security, including immovable	Whatever the underlying theft or extortion covered
Fear	None required	Fear of injury — of any kind	Fear must be of instant death, hurt or restraint
Presence	Irrelevant	Offender need not be present	For extortion-robbery, offender must be present
Maximum	3 years	7 years	10 years (14 on a highway between sunset and sunrise)

Pillai's formulation is worth memorising: extortion takes an intermediate place between theft and robbery, and it is more akin to robbery than to theft. And the cleanest three-way distinction is on consent — in theft there is no consent; in cheating there is consent obtained by fraud; in extortion there is consent obtained by fear.

12. Robbery — and the Two Words That Decide It

Section 309(2): theft is robbery if, in order to the committing of the theft, or in committing the theft, or in carrying away or attempting to carry away property obtained by the theft, the offender, for that end, voluntarily causes or attempts to cause death, hurt or wrongful restraint, or fear of instant death, hurt or restraint.

Section 309(3): extortion is robbery if the offender is in the presence of the person put in fear and, by putting him in fear of instant death, hurt or restraint, induces him then and there to deliver up the thing extorted.

The two decisive words are "for that end".

Violence during a theft does not automatically make it robbery. The violence must be for the purpose of committing the theft, or of carrying away or retaining the stolen property. Theft plus an unrelated assault is theft (s 303) plus hurt (s 115) — two offences, not robbery.

Harish Chandra v. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1976 SC 1430 shows how far the phrase reaches. A wristwatch was taken from a passenger in the crush of a railway platform; when he raised an alarm, the co-accused slapped him and another hit him with a stick. The defence argued the slap came after the watch was already taken, so it could not have been "in order to" commit the theft. The Supreme Court rejected this: the slap enabled the accused to carry away the stolen property, and the section expressly covers hurt caused while carrying away. Robbery.

And the converse, which students consistently miss: where an accused had abandoned the stolen property, was running away, was chased, and used violence against his pursuers — that violence was not for the end of committing the theft or carrying away the property. Not robbery.

Illustration (d) to s 309 marks the outer boundary of "instant". "Your child is in the hands of my gang and will be put to death unless you send us ten thousand rupees" is extortion, not robbery — unless the child is present and the fear is of instant death.

Presumption from possession of stolen property

Illustration (a) to s 114 of the Evidence Act — now s 119, illustration (a), of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 — permits the court to presume that a man in possession of stolen goods soon after the theft is either the thief or a receiver, unless he accounts for his possession.

In Wasim Khan v. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1956 SC 400, the Court held that where murder and robbery form parts of one transaction, unexplained possession is presumptive evidence not only of theft but of the aggravated crime connected with it. But Limbaji v. State of Maharashtra, AIR 2002 SC 491 sounds the necessary caution: before convicting of murder on the strength of recent possession, a court must satisfy itself from all angles that the accused not merely committed the theft but also killed.

13. Dacoity — the Arithmetic of Five

Section 310(1): "When five or more persons conjointly commit or attempt to commit a robbery, or where the whole number of persons conjointly committing or attempting to commit a robbery, and persons present and aiding such commission or attempt, amount to five or more, every person so committing, attempting or aiding, is said to commit dacoity."

Three ingredients: five or more persons; acting conjointly; in committing or attempting robbery — counting both principals and those present and aiding.

The acquittal problem

This is the most litigated point in the section, and the rule is strict. If the charge names five persons and two are acquitted, the remaining three cannot be convicted of dacoity — Om Prakash v. State of Rajasthan. Six charged, three acquitted: the other three fall to robbery under s 309, not dacoity — Ram Shanker Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1956 SC 441.

But there is a vital qualification, stated by the Supreme Court in Raj Kumar @ Raju v. State of Uttaranchal:

"In a given case, however, it may happen that there may be five or more and the factum of five or more persons is either not disputed or is clearly established, but the court may not be able to record a finding as to identity of all the persons... In such a case, conviction of less than five persons — or even one — can stand. But in the absence of such a finding, less than five persons cannot be convicted for an offence of dacoity."

The distinction is between acquittal on the merits (which reduces the count and destroys the charge) and failure of identification (which does not, provided the court records a finding that five or more in fact participated). In Saktu v. State of Uttar Pradesh, thirteen or fourteen took part, most were acquitted for want of identification, and the dacoity conviction was sustained on a finding that more than five had been involved. Always look for that finding in the judgment.

Dacoity punished at three stages before it happens

Dacoity is almost unique in Indian criminal law: the legislature punishes it at three preparatory stages, all now inside s 310.

Stage	BNS	IPC	Punishment
Making preparation to commit dacoity	s 310(4)	s 399	RI up to 10 years + fine
Assembling (five or more) for the purpose of dacoity	s 310(5)	s 402	RI up to 7 years + fine
Belonging to a gang habitually committing dacoity	s 310(6)	s 400	Life or RI up to 10 years + fine

Ordinarily preparation is not punishable at all — this is one of the handful of exceptions, and it exists because dacoity was historically regarded as an offence against the public at large rather than against an individual. But the courts have kept it within limits: a mere assembly carrying knives and choppers does not by itself attract s 310(4) — some act amounting to preparation must be proved. In Chaturi Yadav v. State of Bihar, men assembled at a lonely spot with a gun and live cartridges were acquitted under the assembling provision because there was no evidence of the purpose of the assembly.

Dacoity with murder — s 310(3)

If any one of five or more persons conjointly committing dacoity commits murder in so committing it, every one of them is liable. It is not necessary to prove which member did it, or that the gang shared a common intention to kill, or even that the others expected it. It is enough that the murder was committed while committing the dacoity.

This is where the BNS made its sharpest change in the whole chapter. Section 396 IPC read: "death, or imprisonment for life, or rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to ten years". Section 310(3) BNS reads: "death, or imprisonment for life, or rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than ten years". The ceiling has become a floor. Ten years was previously the least severe end of the range; it is now the minimum the court may impose.

The limits of vicarious liability remain those of Shyam Behari v. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1957 SC 320. The dacoits fled without any booty, were chased, and one of them shot a villager who caught hold of a companion. The Supreme Court held the transaction of dacoity had ended the moment they fled empty-handed; the killing was a separate transaction; the conviction was under s 302 alone, not s 396. The Rajasthan High Court in Laliya v. State of Rajasthan set out the four factors: whether the dacoits retreated without plunder; the interval between the attempt and the murder; the distance between the two places; and whether the booty had been abandoned and how long before.

14. Deadly Weapons — Sections 311 and 312

Neither section creates a substantive offence. Each fixes a mandatory minimum of seven years.

• Section 311 (s 397 IPC): if, at the time of committing robbery or dacoity, the offender uses a deadly weapon, or causes grievous hurt, or attempts to cause death or grievous hurt.
• Section 312 (s 398 IPC): if, at the time of attempting robbery or dacoity, the offender is armed with a deadly weapon.

What does "uses" mean? In Phool Kumar v. Delhi Administration, (1975) 1 SCC 797, one accused carried a knife at a petrol pump but never wielded it. The Supreme Court noticed that s 397 says "uses" while s 398 says "armed with", both carrying the same seven-year minimum, and held that the anomaly is best resolved by reading them alike: carrying a deadly weapon openly, so that it is within the victim's view and capable of terrorising him, is enough. No brandishing is required. Ashfaq v. State (Govt of NCT of Delhi), (2004) 3 SCC 116 reaffirmed this.

The single most valuable point for the defence. Section 311 imposes individual, not constructive, liability. Only the offender who actually used the deadly weapon suffers the minimum. A co-accused who participated in the robbery or dacoity but carried nothing cannot be given the enhanced sentence. Contrast s 309(6) (voluntarily causing hurt in robbery), where the Supreme Court held in Aslam v. State of Rajasthan, (2008) 9 SCC 227 that those "jointly concerned" are liable for the hurt caused by another, even without knowledge of its likelihood. Same chapter, opposite rules — know which one you are arguing.

15. Punishment and Classification

Offence	BNS	Punishment
Theft (first conviction)	s 303(2)	Up to 3 years, or fine, or both — community service if value < ₹5,000, first offence, property returned
Theft (second or subsequent)	s 303(2)	RI not less than 1 year, up to 5 years, + fine
Snatching	s 304(2)	Up to 3 years + fine
Theft in dwelling / transport / place of worship / Govt. property	s 305	Up to 7 years + fine
Theft by clerk or servant	s 306	Up to 7 years + fine
Theft after preparation for death, hurt or restraint	s 307	RI up to 10 years + fine
Extortion	s 308(2)	Up to 7 years, or fine, or both
Putting in fear of injury to commit extortion	s 308(3)	Up to 2 years, or fine, or both
Extortion by fear of death or grievous hurt	s 308(5)	Up to 10 years + fine
Robbery	s 309(4)	RI up to 10 years + fine; up to 14 years on a highway between sunset and sunrise
Attempt to commit robbery	s 309(5)	RI up to 7 years + fine
Voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery	s 309(6)	Life, or RI up to 10 years, + fine
Dacoity	s 310(2)	Life, or RI up to 10 years, + fine
Dacoity with murder	s 310(3)	Death, or life, or RI not less than 10 years, + fine
Robbery / dacoity with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt	s 311	Minimum 7 years
Attempt to commit robbery / dacoity when armed	s 312	Minimum 7 years
Belonging to a gang of robbers or thieves	s 313	RI up to 7 years + fine

Classification. Under the First Schedule to the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, theft, snatching, extortion, robbery and dacoity are all cognizable and non-bailable. Theft, snatching and theft by a clerk or servant are triable by any Magistrate; extortion, robbery and s 313 by a Magistrate of the first class; dacoity and ss 311 and 312 by the Court of Session. Readers should verify the entry for the precise sub-section charged, since the Schedule classifies sub-section by sub-section.

16. Points to Remember

1. Theft protects possession, not ownership. You can steal your own pawned watch. A thief can be the victim of theft.
2. Temporary deprivation is enough — Pyare Lal Bhargava. This is the great Indian departure from English larceny.
3. Dishonest intention is judged at the moment of moving, and a later change of heart does not undo the offence — K.N. Mehra.
4. Bona fide claim of right is a complete defence, however ill-founded — but it must be genuine, not a pretence.
5. Electricity is not movable property; theft of electricity lives in s 135 of the Electricity Act, 2003.
6. Snatching (s 304) is new, is a species of theft, carries the same three-year maximum, and stops short of hurt.
7. Extortion is now seven years, up from three. Consent obtained by fear; property delivered by the victim; may cover immovable property and valuable security.
8. "For that end" decides robbery. Violence unconnected to the taking or the carrying away is a separate offence, not robbery.
9. Robbery needs "instant" — instant death, instant hurt, instant restraint, and for extortion-robbery, presence.
10. Five is not negotiable. Acquittal on merits below five destroys the dacoity charge; failure of identification does not, if the court finds five or more participated.
11. Dacoity with murder now has a ten-year floor, where the IPC had a ten-year ceiling.
12. Section 311 is individual; s 309(6) is joint. Only the weapon-user gets the minimum; but everyone jointly concerned answers for hurt caused in robbery.

17. Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between theft and snatching under the BNS?

Snatching is theft committed in a particular manner — suddenly, quickly or forcibly seizing, grabbing or taking movable property from a person or his possession. Every ingredient of theft must be present first. The maximum for both is three years; the difference lies in the naming of the offence, the way bail is approached, and the fact that street snatchings are now recorded as such.

Which section of the BNS replaces s 379 IPC?

Section 303(2). The definition of theft is in s 303(1), corresponding to s 378 IPC. Note that if the taking was sudden or forcible, the correct section is s 304, and if it was from a vehicle, a place of worship or of government property, it is s 305.

Can a person be convicted of stealing his own property?

Yes. Theft is an offence against possession. If another person is lawfully in possession — a pawnbroker, a repairer holding a lien, a pound-keeper, a court receiver — and you take the article back dishonestly, you commit theft of your own goods. Illustrations (j) and (k) to s 303 say exactly this.

Is extortion bailable under the BNS?

No. Extortion under s 308(2) is cognizable and non-bailable, and the maximum sentence has risen from three years under s 384 IPC to seven years. Readers should nonetheless verify the classification for the specific sub-section charged against the First Schedule to the BNSS.

What if only four persons are proved to have committed a robbery?

Then it is robbery under s 309, not dacoity. Five is an essential ingredient of s 310. But if the court finds that five or more in fact took part and merely cannot identify them all, a conviction for dacoity of fewer than five — even of one — can stand: Raj Kumar @ Raju v. State of Uttaranchal.

Does a robber have to actually use his weapon to attract the seven-year minimum?

No. Under Phool Kumar and Ashfaq, it is enough that the deadly weapon is within the victim's view and capable of creating terror. But only the offender who carried it suffers the minimum — s 311 does not operate constructively against unarmed co-accused.

Has the BNS changed the definitions of theft, extortion, robbery or dacoity?

No. All four definitions, with their explanations and illustrations, have been carried over from the IPC essentially verbatim. The entire body of case law under ss 378 to 402 IPC therefore continues to apply. What changed is the structure (twenty-five sections compressed into eleven), the coverage of aggravated theft, the addition of snatching, and the quantum of punishment in several places.

Conclusion

Strip away the numbering and this chapter asks four questions in sequence. Was the property moved out of someone's possession dishonestly? If no, it is not theft, and nothing above it in the chapter can apply. Was it taken suddenly or forcibly? Then snatching. Was it handed over out of fear? Then extortion. Was there violence, for the purpose of the taking, instantly? Then robbery — and if five men did it together, dacoity.

The Sanhita has not disturbed a single one of those questions. It has renumbered them, added a rung for the chain-snatcher, widened aggravated theft to catch the vehicle and the idol and the government file, made a first-time petty thief do community service instead of going to jail, and put a floor under the sentence for those who kill in the course of a dacoity.

The definitions of 1860 have survived intact into 2024. What has changed is the price.

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Disclaimer: These notes are prepared for educational purposes for law students, judiciary and AIBE aspirants, and practitioners, and do not constitute legal advice. Statutory provisions have been summarised and, in places, paraphrased for clarity; readers must verify the exact language against the enacted text of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 and the Indian Penal Code, 1860 before relying on them in argument or examination. Section numbering, and the classification of offences in the First Schedule to the BNSS, are subject to amendment and should be checked afresh. Case holdings are stated in summary form; readers should consult the full reports before citation.