Last verified: July 2026
Two men meet in a parked car and agree to rob a bank the following week. They buy no gun, case no branch, and touch no cash. On the law of most ordinary crimes, nothing punishable has happened yet: there is no theft, no hurt, no trespass. Criminal conspiracy is the exception. The moment the agreement is complete, the offence is complete. Under Section 61 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS), the meeting of minds is itself the crime, and the two men can be prosecuted whether or not the robbery ever takes place.
That is what makes conspiracy such a powerful and heavily litigated charge. It lets the State intervene before harm is done, and it lets one act of agreement bind together everyone who shared the plan, from the person who financed it to the one who was to drive the getaway car. It is also why courts guard the offence so carefully. An agreement is invisible; it is almost never written down or spoken in front of witnesses. Prove it too loosely and mere association, presence, or suspicion starts to look like conspiracy. Prove it too strictly and organised crime becomes untouchable. Section 61 sits on exactly that fault line.
For decades this law lived in two sections of the Indian Penal Code, 1860: Section 120A, which defined criminal conspiracy, and Section 120B, which punished it. The BNS, which replaced the IPC with effect from 1 July 2024, has folded both into a single provision. Section 61(1) now carries the definition and Section 61(2) the punishment. The language is almost identical to the old sections, and the large body of Supreme Court authority built up under Sections 120A and 120B continues to apply. What has changed is the numbering, the structure, and the statute a lawyer must now cite.
This matters in practice because charge sheets, bail orders, and judgments filed after 1 July 2024 must read “Section 61 of the BNS,” while offences committed before that date are still tried under Section 120B of the IPC. Getting the citation wrong is not fatal, but it signals carelessness, and in a bail or discharge application carelessness costs credibility. The sections below set out what a criminal conspiracy is, what the prosecution must establish, how the two punishment tiers work, how the offence is proved when there is no direct evidence, and how it differs from the neighbouring doctrines of abetment, common intention, and unlawful assembly.
Criminal conspiracy under Section 61 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 is an agreement between two or more persons, with a common object, to do or cause to be done an illegal act, or a legal act by illegal means. Where the object of the agreement is to commit an offence, the agreement itself is punishable, with no further step required. Where the object is some other illegal act, the conspiracy is punishable only if at least one conspirator does some act besides the agreement to carry it out. Section 61 replaces Sections 120A and 120B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and merges the definition and the punishment into one section.
The remainder of this article examines each element in turn, with the leading judgments that give the section its practical meaning.
What is criminal conspiracy under BNS Section 61?
Criminal conspiracy is the offence of agreeing to commit a crime. Section 61 of the BNS defines it as an agreement between two or more persons, with a common object, to do or cause to be done either an illegal act or an act that is not illegal but is to be achieved by illegal means. The gist of the offence is the agreement, not its execution. In the classic formulation of the courts, conspiracy is complete the moment two or more minds meet on an unlawful design; what the conspirators do afterwards is evidence of the agreement, not a condition of the offence.
This is a deliberate choice by the law. Ordinary criminal liability attaches to conduct: you are punished for what you do, not for what you plan. Conspiracy reaches back one step earlier, to the plan itself, because a group that has agreed on a crime is more dangerous than a lone individual toying with an idea, and because the combination gives the plan a momentum of its own. The offence therefore punishes the combination, treating the agreement as an act in itself.
The word “illegal” does a lot of work in the definition. It is wider than “an offence.” As the interpretation clauses of the Sanhita carry forward from the old Code, “illegal” applies to everything that is an offence, everything prohibited by law, and everything that furnishes a ground for a civil action. So a conspiracy need not always be a conspiracy to commit a crime in the narrow sense; it can be an agreement to do something that is merely prohibited or actionable. That width is then reined in by a proviso, discussed below, which requires an extra step, an overt act, before such lesser conspiracies become punishable.
Section 61 sits alongside its close cousins in the BNS. The Sanhita groups abetment (Sections 45 to 60), criminal conspiracy (Section 61), and attempt to commit offences (Section 62) together, because each extends criminal liability beyond the completed offence: abetment to those who instigate or aid it, conspiracy to those who agree on it, and attempt to those who set out to commit it but fall short. Understanding where conspiracy ends and these neighbours begin is central to using the section correctly, and a later section of this article draws the lines.
Section 61 of the BNS, decoded: definition and punishment
Section 61 is a short provision doing two jobs. Sub-section (1) defines criminal conspiracy and attaches a proviso and an explanation. Sub-section (2) prescribes the punishment in two tiers. Reading them together is the only way to see how the offence actually operates.
Section 61(1): the definition, proviso, and explanation
Section 61(1) states that when two or more persons agree, with the common object, to do or cause to be done an illegal act, or an act which is not illegal by illegal means, such an agreement is designated a criminal conspiracy. Two structural points follow immediately. First, a single person cannot conspire; there must be at least two agreeing minds. Second, it is the agreement that is “designated” the offence: the statute names the agreement itself as the criminal conspiracy.
The proviso then carves out an important qualification. No agreement, except an agreement to commit an offence, amounts to a criminal conspiracy unless some act besides the agreement is done by one or more parties to the agreement in pursuance of it. In plain terms, the law splits conspiracies into two classes. If the object is to commit an offence, the bare agreement is enough. If the object is only some other illegal act, something prohibited or civilly actionable but not itself an offence, then the agreement alone is not punishable; there must additionally be an overt act done to carry it forward.
The explanation removes a possible loophole. It provides that it is immaterial whether the illegal act is the ultimate object of the agreement or is merely incidental to that object. A group cannot escape liability by arguing that the crime was only a by-product of some larger, lawful-looking plan. If an illegal act is part of the design, whether as the goal or as a means along the way, the agreement is caught.
Section 61(2): the two punishment tiers
Section 61(2) grades punishment by the seriousness of the offence that was the object of the conspiracy. Clause (a) deals with serious conspiracies: where the parties conspire to commit an offence punishable with death, imprisonment for life, or rigorous imprisonment for a term of two years or more, and no express punishment for that conspiracy is provided elsewhere in the Sanhita, each conspirator is punished in the same manner as if he had abetted the offence. The consequence is significant: a conspirator to a grave crime faces, in effect, the punishment for the crime itself.
Clause (b) is the residual tier. Any criminal conspiracy other than one falling under clause (a) is punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term not exceeding six months, or with fine, or with both. This lighter punishment covers conspiracies to commit minor offences and conspiracies whose object is an illegal act that is not an offence at all.
The phrase “where no express provision is made in this Sanhita” in clause (a) is easy to miss but matters. For several grave offences the BNS itself prescribes a specific punishment for conspiring to commit them, and where it does, that special provision governs instead of the general Section 61(2)(a) formula. Section 61 is, in that sense, the default rule for conspiracy; it yields wherever the Sanhita has spelt out a bespoke punishment.
From IPC Sections 120A and 120B to BNS Section 61
For anyone who learned this law under the Indian Penal Code, the transition is straightforward. The old law on criminal conspiracy under the IPC lived in two sections: Section 120A defined the offence and Section 120B punished it. The BNS has merged them. Section 61(1) is the former Section 120A; Section 61(2) is the former Section 120B. The definition, the proviso requiring an overt act, and the explanation about the ultimate or incidental object have all been carried across, and the two-tier punishment structure is the same.
Because the substance is preserved, the judicial architecture survives with it. Every leading authority decided under Sections 120A and 120B, on the meaning of agreement, on proof by circumstantial evidence, and on the reach of the offence across time and place, remains good law under Section 61. A 2026 charge under Section 61 is argued with the same case law that governed a 2016 charge under Section 120B. This continuity was a stated aim of the new Code: to modernise the structure of Indian criminal law without discarding the settled interpretation that gives each offence its content.
There is one genuine change in wording, and it is worth stating precisely because bare-act reproductions online disagree about it. Section 61(1) is not a word-for-word copy of Section 120A. As enacted in the official gazette, it requires that two or more persons “agree with the common object” to do or cause to be done the illegal act, and the words “with the common object” did not appear in Section 120A of the IPC. A number of secondary reproductions drop the phrase and reprint the old IPC text, which is why the point is often stated both ways; the authoritative source is the gazette, which carries the phrase. The better view is that the addition changes the label more than the substance. Criminal conspiracy has always required a meeting of minds directed at a shared unlawful objective, a requirement the Supreme Court read into Section 120A long before the BNS. The new phrase codifies that shared-object element rather than raising a fresh hurdle, so what a prosecutor must prove is what the courts have always demanded: two or more persons agreeing on a single unlawful design.
Historically, it is worth remembering that Sections 120A and 120B were not part of the original 1860 Code at all. They were inserted by the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1913, to give India a general law of conspiracy modelled on the English common-law offence. Before 1913, conspiracy was punishable only in the narrow forms scattered through the Code, such as abetment by conspiracy. Section 61 of the BNS is the direct descendant of that 1913 reform, now in its third statutory home.
The essential ingredients of criminal conspiracy
To secure a conviction under Section 61, the prosecution must establish a defined set of ingredients. The courts have distilled them from the statutory language and a century of authority, and they are the checklist against which every conspiracy charge stands or falls.
The first ingredient is a plurality of persons. There must be two or more people who are parties to the agreement, because one cannot agree with oneself. This has a practical corollary: if all the alleged co-conspirators except one are acquitted, the sole remaining accused generally cannot be convicted of conspiracy, since there is no second agreeing mind. A conspiracy can, however, exist even where some conspirators are unknown or untraced, provided the evidence shows that the accused agreed with at least one other person.
The second ingredient is an agreement. This is the heart of the offence. It is not enough that two people share the same criminal intention or independently pursue the same end; they must agree with each other to pursue it together. The agreement need not be formal, express, or reduced to words. It is almost always tacit, inferred from the concerted actions of the parties. But the prosecution must show a genuine meeting of minds, a consensus to act in concert, and not merely knowledge, acquiescence, or presence.
The third ingredient is the object of the agreement: it must be to do, or cause to be done, an illegal act, or an act that is not illegal by illegal means. The unlawful character may lie in the end pursued or in the means chosen. An agreement to achieve a perfectly lawful result through unlawful means, for instance to recover a genuine debt by criminal intimidation, is as much a conspiracy as an agreement to commit an outright crime.
The fourth ingredient applies only to the lesser class of conspiracies. Where the object is an illegal act that is not itself an offence, the proviso to Section 61(1) requires an overt act done in pursuance of the agreement before the offence is complete. For conspiracies to commit an offence, no overt act is needed; the agreement alone is punishable. It is a common and costly error to demand proof of an overt act in every conspiracy case, when the requirement is confined to the non-offence category.
A fifth point, strictly a feature of the offence rather than a separate ingredient, is that the conspiracy need not succeed. The object crime does not have to be committed, attempted, or even begun. In State of Maharashtra v. Som Nath Thapa, (1996) 4 SCC 659, the Supreme Court held that a person can be roped into a conspiracy if the evidence shows that he knew of and agreed to the unlawful object, even without knowing every detail or every other participant. The agreement, not its fruit, is what the law punishes.
Punishment for criminal conspiracy under Section 61(2)
The punishment for criminal conspiracy is not fixed; it tracks the gravity of the offence the conspirators set out to commit. This is the single most important practical feature of Section 61(2), and it is where charge sheets most often go wrong.
Under the serious tier in Section 61(2)(a), a conspiracy to commit an offence punishable with death, life imprisonment, or rigorous imprisonment for two years or more attracts the same punishment as abetment of that offence, which, for most such crimes, is the punishment for the offence itself. So a person convicted only of conspiring to commit murder faces the sentence for murder, even if the murder was never carried out, because the law treats the conspirator to a grave crime as gravely as the perpetrator. This is what gives the conspiracy charge its bite in cases of terrorism, organised crime, large frauds, and contract killings.
Under the residual tier in Section 61(2)(b), every other conspiracy, whether to commit a minor offence or to do an illegal act that is not an offence, is punishable with imprisonment of either description up to six months, or fine, or both. The gap between the two tiers is enormous, which is why the classification of the object offence is often the real battleground in a conspiracy trial.
Two qualifications complete the picture. First, clause (a) applies only “where no express provision is made in this Sanhita” for the particular conspiracy; several serious offences in the BNS carry their own conspiracy punishment, which then displaces the general rule. Second, because the sentence for a serious conspiracy mirrors the sentence for the completed offence, the antecedent question, whether there was in truth an agreement and of what, carries the entire weight of the case. A weak conspiracy charge attached to a grave offence is the most consequential kind of over-charging, and courts scrutinise it closely at the bail and discharge stages.
How criminal conspiracy is proved
Conspiracies are, by their nature, hatched in secrecy. Direct evidence of the agreement, such as a witness who heard the parties strike the bargain or a document recording it, is rare. The law has therefore always accepted that a conspiracy is usually proved by circumstantial evidence: by inference from the acts, conduct, and surrounding circumstances of the accused. In Som Nath Thapa and in Kehar Singh v. State (Delhi Administration), (1988) 3 SCC 609, the Supreme Court confirmed that the agreement may be inferred from a chain of circumstances that points to a concerted design, provided the chain is complete and is consistent only with guilt.
That reliance on inference is also the offence’s greatest danger, and the courts have set firm limits. Suspicion, association, or mere presence is not proof of conspiracy. Being related to a conspirator, being seen in his company, or knowing of a crime without agreeing to it does not make a person a party to the agreement. There must be cogent material from which a meeting of minds can be inferred, and where the circumstances are equally consistent with innocence, the accused is entitled to acquittal. This distinction, between an inference that is compelling and one that is merely possible, decides most contested conspiracy cases.
A special rule of evidence assists the prosecution once a conspiracy is prima facie shown. Section 8 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (the successor to Section 10 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872) makes anything said, done, or written by any one conspirator, in reference to their common intention, a relevant fact against every other conspirator. The rule is powerful because it lets the words of one bind all. But it is tightly conditioned: it applies only after the court has reasonable ground to believe that two or more persons conspired, only to things said or done in reference to the common design, and only to the period during which the conspiracy was on foot. Statements made before a person joined, or after the conspiracy ended, fall outside it.
The reach of the offence in time and place is equally settled. In Ajay Aggarwal v. Union of India, (1993) 3 SCC 609, the Supreme Court held that criminal conspiracy is a continuing offence: it lasts as long as the agreement subsists, a person who joins an ongoing conspiracy becomes liable for it, and the offence can be tried wherever any act in furtherance of it was done. That is why a conspiracy planned abroad but executed in India, or spanning several States, can be prosecuted here and in more than one place.
The evidentiary value of documents and confessions has generated its own case law. In Central Bureau of Investigation v. V.C. Shukla, (1998) 3 SCC 410, the Jain Hawala case, the Supreme Court held that loose diary and notebook entries were, on the facts, insufficient to sustain conspiracy charges, underlining that even suggestive records must meet the ordinary standards of admissibility and reliability before they can prove an agreement. The message across these authorities is consistent: conspiracy may be proved by inference, but the inference must be a safe one.
Landmark judgments on criminal conspiracy
The content of Section 61 is really the content of the cases decided under it and its IPC predecessors. A handful of judgments recur in almost every conspiracy argument.
In Kehar Singh v. State (Delhi Administration), (1988) 3 SCC 609, arising from the assassination of a former Prime Minister, the Supreme Court upheld conspiracy convictions built almost entirely on circumstantial evidence, and explained that the agreement, the meeting of minds, is the essence of the offence and may be inferred from proved circumstances. In State of Maharashtra v. Som Nath Thapa, (1996) 4 SCC 659, the Court clarified the mental element, holding that a person is a conspirator if he knew the unlawful object of the agreement and agreed to it, even if he was ignorant of its finer details or of the identity of other participants.
In Yash Pal Mittal v. State of Punjab, (1977) 4 SCC 540, the Court explained that the conspirators need not all play the same role or agree to do the same thing; a conspiracy may involve a division of labour towards a common unlawful end, and the agreement is one even though its performance is distributed. In Ajay Aggarwal v. Union of India, (1993) 3 SCC 609, the Court settled that conspiracy is a continuing offence with consequences for jurisdiction and for late-joining conspirators. And in State (NCT of Delhi) v. Navjot Sandhu, (2005) 11 SCC 600, the Parliament attack case, the Court applied these principles to a modern terrorism prosecution, examining how far circumstantial evidence and the acts of co-conspirators could establish the agreement.
The 2026 decisions of the Supreme Court show these principles being applied with a sharp eye on the meeting-of-minds requirement. In Pulkit @ Monu v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 2026 INSC 543, the Court acquitted accused persons of a murder conspiracy, holding that where key witnesses raised a real doubt that they had been set up by the police, the remaining circumstantial evidence was too thin to establish any prior agreement or meeting of minds between the accused and the assailants. In Gopi Chand v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2026 INSC 598, the Court examined the use of an approver’s testimony to prove a conspiracy, reaffirming that accomplice evidence must be corroborated in material particulars before it can anchor a conviction. The direction of travel is clear: the more serious the conspiracy charged, the more exacting the proof of agreement the courts will demand.
The same caution appears in the 2026 anti-corruption jurisprudence, where the Supreme Court held that the mere presence of a subordinate officer when a superior is alleged to have accepted a bribe cannot, without proof of a prior meeting of minds, establish a criminal conspiracy. Presence is not agreement: a principle as old as Kehar Singh and as current as this year’s docket.
Criminal conspiracy versus abetment, common intention, and unlawful assembly
Criminal conspiracy is easily confused with three neighbouring doctrines that also impose liability on groups. Keeping them apart is essential, both for framing charges and for defending against them.
Abetment and conspiracy overlap but are not the same. Abetment under the BNS (Sections 45 to 60) can be committed by instigation, by conspiracy, or by intentional aid. Where abetment is by conspiracy, the law requires not only the agreement but also an act or illegal omission done in pursuance of it: abetment is tied to the doing of something. Criminal conspiracy under Section 61 is wider, because for a conspiracy to commit an offence the agreement alone completes the crime, with no need for any further act. The two can be charged together, but conspiracy reaches the pure agreement that abetment by conspiracy does not. The difference between abetment and criminal conspiracy is examined in detail in a companion article, and abetment of suicide under the BNS shows how a distinct abetment offence operates under its own provisions.
Common intention, now in Section 3(5) of the BNS (formerly Section 34 of the IPC), is not a substantive offence at all. It is a rule of joint liability: when a criminal act is done by several persons in furtherance of the common intention of all, each is liable as if he did it alone. Two differences stand out. First, common intention requires participation in the actual criminal act, whereas conspiracy is complete on the agreement, before any act. Second, common intention is not itself a crime but a mechanism for attributing an offence committed by the group to each member, while conspiracy is a distinct, chargeable offence. The way Section 3(5) fixes each participant with liability for the whole is explored in the article on criminal conspiracy and joint liability.
Unlawful assembly, under Sections 189 and 190 of the BNS (formerly Sections 141 and 149 of the IPC), needs five or more persons who share a common object of a kind specified in the section, and it fixes every member with liability for offences committed in prosecution of that common object. Conspiracy, by contrast, needs only two persons, has no minimum-numbers threshold, and turns on an agreement rather than on physical assembly. A meeting of two in a locked room can be a conspiracy; it can never be an unlawful assembly.
Why criminal conspiracy charges succeed or fail
Because the offence is proved by inference, the same features that make conspiracy easy to allege make it hard to sustain. Understanding where these charges break down is useful to prosecutors framing them and to defence counsel resisting them.
The most common weakness is the leap from association to agreement. Charge sheets frequently list the accused’s meetings, phone calls, or family ties and invite the court to infer a conspiracy. Unless those circumstances point unmistakably to a shared unlawful design, the inference fails, and the courts have repeatedly refused to convict on suspicion dressed up as circumstantial evidence. A second weakness is misclassifying the object offence, which drives the punishment tier; a conspiracy wrongly slotted into Section 61(2)(a) collapses if the object offence does not carry the required two-year-or-more sentence.
A third recurring problem is the misuse of the co-conspirator evidence rule. Prosecutions sometimes lead the statements of one accused against the others before any independent, prima facie proof of the conspiracy exists, but Section 8 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam applies only once that threshold is crossed, and only to things said in reference to the common design during the life of the conspiracy. Statements outside those limits are inadmissible, and a case resting on them will not stand. A fourth is the single-conspirator problem: if the co-accused are acquitted, the lone survivor usually cannot be convicted, because a conspiracy needs at least two guilty minds.
For the defence, the practical lines of attack follow from the ingredients. Counsel can show that the meeting of minds is not established; that the accused had knowledge or presence but not agreement; that the alleged object was neither an offence nor an illegal act; that, for a non-offence conspiracy, no overt act was done; or that the co-conspirator evidence was admitted prematurely. For the prosecution, the lesson of the recent judgments is to build the agreement from a complete and independent chain of circumstances, rather than leaning on association or on the untested word of an accomplice.
Frequently asked questions
What is criminal conspiracy under Section 61 of the BNS?
It is an agreement between two or more persons to do, or cause to be done, an illegal act, or a legal act by illegal means. The offence lies in the agreement itself. Where the object is to commit an offence, the agreement alone is punishable; for other illegal objects, an overt act in pursuance of the agreement is also required.
Which IPC sections does Section 61 replace?
Section 61 replaces Sections 120A and 120B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. Section 120A (the definition) is now Section 61(1), and Section 120B (the punishment) is now Section 61(2). The two former sections have been merged into one.
Is criminal conspiracy a separate offence, or must the planned crime be committed?
It is a separate, substantive offence. The conspiracy is complete when the agreement is made, and it is punishable even if the intended crime is never carried out, attempted, or begun.
Can one person be guilty of criminal conspiracy?
No. Conspiracy requires at least two agreeing minds, because a person cannot conspire alone. If every co-accused except one is acquitted, the sole remaining accused generally cannot be convicted of conspiracy.
What is the punishment for criminal conspiracy under Section 61?
It depends on the object of the conspiracy. A conspiracy to commit an offence punishable with death, life imprisonment, or rigorous imprisonment for two years or more is punished as if the accused had abetted that offence, often the same punishment as the offence itself. Any other conspiracy is punishable with up to six months’ imprisonment, or fine, or both.
Is an overt act always required to prove criminal conspiracy?
No. An overt act beyond the agreement is required only where the object of the conspiracy is an illegal act that is not itself an offence. Where the object is to commit an offence, the agreement alone completes the crime.
How is a criminal conspiracy proved when there is no direct evidence?
Conspiracies are usually proved by circumstantial evidence, by inference from the conduct and surrounding circumstances of the accused. The chain of circumstances must be complete and consistent only with the existence of an agreement; suspicion, association, or mere presence is not enough.
Does each conspirator need to know all the details and all the other conspirators?
No. A person is a conspirator if he knew the unlawful object of the agreement and agreed to it, even without knowing every detail of the plan or the identity of every other participant, as the Supreme Court held in State of Maharashtra v. Som Nath Thapa.
What is the co-conspirator rule of evidence?
Under Section 8 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (formerly Section 10 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872), once there is reasonable ground to believe two or more persons conspired, anything said, done, or written by one of them in reference to their common intention is relevant against the others. It applies only after a conspiracy is prima facie shown, and only to acts done while the conspiracy was on foot.
Is criminal conspiracy a continuing offence?
Yes. In Ajay Aggarwal v. Union of India, the Supreme Court held that conspiracy is a continuing offence that lasts as long as the agreement subsists. A person who joins an ongoing conspiracy becomes liable, and the offence can be tried wherever any act in furtherance of it was done.
How is criminal conspiracy different from abetment?
Abetment by conspiracy requires an act or illegal omission done in pursuance of the agreement, whereas criminal conspiracy to commit an offence is complete on the agreement alone. Conspiracy is the wider offence because it reaches the pure agreement.
How is criminal conspiracy different from common intention under Section 3(5)?
Common intention (formerly Section 34 of the IPC) is a rule of joint liability, not a separate offence, and it requires participation in the actual criminal act. Criminal conspiracy is a distinct offence complete on the agreement, before any act is done.
How is criminal conspiracy different from unlawful assembly?
Unlawful assembly under Sections 189 and 190 of the BNS needs five or more persons sharing a specified common object and turns on physical assembly. Conspiracy needs only two persons and turns on an agreement, so a meeting of two people can be a conspiracy but never an unlawful assembly.
Is criminal conspiracy a cognizable and non-bailable offence?
The classification follows the object offence. Where the conspiracy is to commit a serious offence attracting the abetment-equivalent punishment under Section 61(2)(a), it is generally treated as cognizable and non-bailable, in line with that offence. A conspiracy under the residual tier is treated far more leniently.
Is criminal conspiracy bailable if the object crime is minor?
A conspiracy falling under Section 61(2)(b), punishable with up to six months, or fine, or both, is a much less serious matter than a Section 61(2)(a) conspiracy and is treated accordingly for the purposes of arrest and bail. As always, the precise classification turns on the object offence and the facts.
Does Section 61 apply to offences committed before 1 July 2024?
No. Offences committed before 1 July 2024 continue to be tried under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code, while conspiracies on or after that date are charged under Section 61 of the BNS. The two bodies of case law are, in substance, the same.
References
Case law
- Central Bureau of Investigation v. V.C. Shukla, (1998) 3 SCC 410
- Gopi Chand v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2026 INSC 598
- Kehar Singh v. State (Delhi Administration), (1988) 3 SCC 609
- Pulkit @ Monu v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 2026 INSC 543
- State of Maharashtra v. Som Nath Thapa, (1996) 4 SCC 659
- State (NCT of Delhi) v. Navjot Sandhu, (2005) 11 SCC 600
- Yash Pal Mittal v. State of Punjab, (1977) 4 SCC 540
- Ajay Aggarwal v. Union of India, (1993) 3 SCC 609
Statutes
- Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (Act No. 45 of 2023): Section 61; Sections 45 to 60; Sections 62, 189, 190; Section 3(5)
- Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (Act No. 47 of 2023): Section 8
- Indian Penal Code, 1860 (Act No. 45 of 1860): Sections 120A and 120B
This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Criminal conspiracy is a fact-sensitive charge, and the application of Section 61 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita to any particular case depends on its own circumstances. Readers facing or contemplating proceedings should consult a qualified advocate. Statutory provisions and case law are stated as of the date of last verification and may change.
