BNS Section 337: Forgery of Record of Court or of Public Register, etc

Definition of BNS Section 337

Section 337 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023 states:

Whoever forges a document or an electronic record, purporting to be a record or proceeding of or in a Court or an identity document issued by Government including voter identity card or Aadhaar Card, or a register of birth, marriage or burial, or a register kept by a public servant as such, or a certificate or document purporting to be made by a public servant in his official capacity, or an authority to institute or defend a suit, or to take any proceedings therein, or to confess judgment, or a power of attorney, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine.

Explanation.—For the purposes of this section, “register” includes any list, data or record of any entries maintained in the electronic form as defined in clause (r) of sub-section (1) of section 2 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

Explanation and Illustration of Section 337

This section is applicable to any person within the sovereign borders of India, whether citizen, resident or otherwise. It deals with the offence of forging public records. Let us break down the section to get a better understanding of it.

• Offence

  While section 337 provides for the offence of forgery, this section provides for forgery of public records. The two have been provided for separately as forging a public record is considered to be slightly more serious as a crime as such an act has the potential to deceive a very large part of the general public who access and rely on these documents and records for various purposes. It states that any act of forgery shall be considered an offence under this section if the document that has been forged is:
  
  a record of a Court proceeding or
  an identity document issued by Government including voter identity card or Aadhaar Card, or
  a register or a certificate of birth, marriage or burial, or
  a register kept by a public servant as such, in performance of their duty or
  a certificate or document issued by a public servant in his official capacity, or
  an official order to institute or defend a case in court, or to take any proceedings therein, or to confess judgment, or
  a power of attorney
  
  Further, it clarifies by way of an explantation that for the purposes of this section, “register” includes any list, data or record of any entries maintained in the electronic form as defined in clause (r) of sub-section (1) of section 2 of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Electronic form has been defined under Section 2 (1) (r) as follows:
  
  “"electronic form" with reference to information means any information generated, sent, received or stored in media, magnetic, optical, computer memory, micro film, computer generated microfiche or similar device;

• Punishment

  Any person found guilty of committing forgery of public records shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine.
  
  The above actions may not be an offence under this section if:
  
  The offender is forced or coerced into performing the offence
  The offender is a minor or not of sane mind.
  
  However, there may be other sections under the BNS under which the above actions can be prosecuted and while they may be disqualified under the provisions of this section, such actions will still be punishable under the provisions of those respective sections of the BNS.
  
  Illustration
  
  A runs a business of forging and selling passports for dishonest purposes. A is an offender under the provisions of section 337.

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