Offences relating to elections

On polling day in Navi Mumbai, a worker stands outside the booth handing out sweet boxes and ₹500 notes. A few lanes away, a voter is told that his family will suffer divine displeasure if he votes the wrong way. Inside, a stranger asks for a ballot in the name of a neighbour who has moved abroad. All three are interfering with the same thing: a citizen's free choice at an election. Chapter IX of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita protects that choice with criminal law, and the exam question is always which act is bribery, which is undue influence and which is personation.

In two minutes

BNS ss.169–177 (old IPC Chapter IXA, ss.171A–171I) punish interference with electoral rights: bribery, undue influence and personation carry up to one year, and the bookkeeping offences carry fine only.

The rest of this chapter

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