Definitions — Section 2

You file a complaint at a police station in Andheri and the officer says, this is a non-cognizable matter, go to the magistrate. Next door a friend is told, this is a warrant-case, the trial will be longer. Two labels, and they decide who can arrest, who can investigate and how the trial runs. Where do these labels come from? They come from a dictionary at the front of the code: section 2, which fixes the meaning of the words every other chapter uses.

In two minutes

Section 2(1) BNSS is the code's dictionary; the pairs cognizable/non-cognizable, bailable/non-bailable, summons-case/warrant-case, and complaint/police report decide who may arrest, who may investigate, which procedure applies and how the case begins.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Criminal Procedure Code 1973, Juvenile Justice Act 2015 and POCSO Act 2012 on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.