BNS Section 210: Omission to Produce a Document or Electronic Record to a Public Servant (IPC 175 Mapping) (2026)

Explainer · Criminal Law · BNS

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

Section 210 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) punishes a person who is legally bound to produce a document or electronic record to a public servant and intentionally fails to produce it. The BNS has been in force since 1 July 2024 and replaces the Indian Penal Code (IPC). If you still look up "IPC 175", Section 210 is the provision you now need. This explainer sets out what Section 210 covers, how it maps to the old law, the punishment and the classification. Last verified October 2026.

01Why the section number matters now

Refusing to hand over a document that you are legally bound to produce to a public servant was punished under Section 175 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Since 1 July 2024 the IPC is replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS), and this offence now sits in Section 210.

This matters in practice. A complaint for an offence committed on or after 1 July 2024 cites Section 210, not Section 175. Older matters keep their IPC number, because the law that applies is the law on the date of the offence. For some years both numbers will appear in live files.

02What Section 210 covers

Section 210 punishes a person who is legally bound to produce or deliver up a document or electronic record to a public servant, and who intentionally omits to do so. The addition of electronic records is a modern update that the old law did not spell out.

The duty to produce must come from the law. Section 210 does not punish a refusal to share documents in general. It punishes the failure to produce a document or record that a public servant is legally entitled to require, such as a record a court or an investigating officer has lawfully called for.

03Key ingredients

To make out an offence under Section 210, the prosecution must show:

• the accused was legally bound to produce or deliver up a document or electronic record to a public servant;
• the public servant was acting as such; and
• the accused intentionally omitted to produce or deliver up that document or record.

The omission must be intentional. A genuine inability to produce a record, or a lawful excuse, does not fall within the section. The illustration in the provision gives the example of a person legally bound to produce a document before a court who deliberately does not produce it.

04Old to new: IPC 175 to BNS 210

Section 175 of the IPC is now Section 210 of the BNS. The offence is carried over, with electronic records added and the fines raised.

The heading of this page refers to giving false information, but the provision that carries this number in the BNS is about failing to produce a document. Furnishing false information to a public servant is a different section of the BNS.

05Punishment and classification

The punishment under Section 210 depends on who the document was to be produced to.

• General case: simple imprisonment up to one month, or a fine up to five thousand rupees, or both.
• Document for a Court: where the document or record was to be produced to a court, simple imprisonment up to six months, or a fine up to ten thousand rupees, or both.

On classification, the offence under Section 210 is treated as non-cognizable and bailable, carried over from the old IPC Section 175, and is tried by the court in which the offence is committed or by a Magistrate.

06What changed from the old law

Two changes stand out. First, Section 210 expressly covers electronic records, not just paper documents, which keeps the offence current. Second, the fines are much higher, rising from five hundred rupees to five thousand, and from one thousand to ten thousand where the document is for a court.

The core of the offence, an intentional failure to produce a document you are legally bound to produce, is carried over from IPC Section 175. So the older case law on Section 175 still guides how Section 210 of the BNS is read. The closely linked duty to give notice or information is in Section 211 of the BNS.

07Where Claw fits

Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals.

These charges usually surface inside a larger investigation or inquiry, where the real dispute is whether the omission was intentional and whether a duty to produce truly arose in law. Claw lets you search 30 crore and more judgments, reaching from Supreme Court decisions of 1950 to High Court decisions of 1990, to see how the old Section 175 has been applied. It also follows the cases, orders and hearing dates of a live matter across 9,102 courts, benches and forums, returning results in under 5 seconds.

Your files are not training data: Claw does not use customer case documents to train its AI models. Create a free Claw account to review these rulings and to track a live matter by party or advocate name. For the wider body of law, see case search across Indian courts.

08Sources and further reading

• India Code (official text of the BNS, 2023): indiacode.nic.in
• PRS Legislative Research (BNS overview and IPC comparison): prsindia.org
• Section 210, BNS (bare text): devgan.in
• Claw: clawlaw.in

This explainer is general information, not legal advice. The law changes through amendments and judgments, so check the current text and take advice from counsel before you act.

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