Reconstructing Criminal Liability in India: Mens Rea, Judicial Interpretation and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023

Abstract

The enactment of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 marks a significant reorganisation of India’s substantive criminal law and raises renewed questions concerning the foundations of criminal responsibility. This article examines the changing architecture of criminal liability under the new statutory framework, with particular emphasis on mens rea, intention, knowledge, evidentiary inference and judicial interpretation. It argues that criminal liability cannot be established solely through the identification of prohibited conduct or harmful consequences. The attribution of criminal responsibility requires a principled connection between the accused’s conduct, the mental element prescribed by the offence, and evidence sufficient to establish that element. The article further examines how the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 structures the evidentiary process through which intention, motive, preparation and subsequent conduct may become relevant to criminal adjudication. Particular attention is given to the judicial task of distinguishing legitimate inference from suspicion when determining guilt on circumstantial evidence. Drawing upon Indian criminal jurisprudence and contemporary scholarship on legal meaning, the article contends that the BNS should not be understood merely as a replacement of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, but as a new statutory setting in which established principles of culpability require careful judicial application. It concludes that legality, mens rea, evidentiary discipline and reasoned interpretation remain essential safeguards against unjustified expansion of criminal responsibility.