CHAPTER III OF PUNISHMENTS

Section 73: Solitary confinement

Repealed by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (45 of 2023) with effect from 1 July 2024.

Whenever any person is convicted of an offence for which under this Code the Court has power to sentence him to rigorous imprisonment, the Court may, by its sentence, order that the offender shall be kept in solitary confinement for any portion or portions of the imprisonment to which he is sentenced, not exceeding three months in the whole, according to the following scale, that is to say—

a time not exceeding one month if the term of imprisonment shall not exceed six months;

a time not exceeding two months if the term of imprisonment shall exceed six months and ¹[shall not exceed one] year;

a time not exceeding three months if the term of imprisonment shall exceed one year.

Footnotes in the official text

1.Subs. by Act 8 of 1862, s. 5, for “be less than a”.

Now in the BNS

As given in the correspondence table of the National Crime Records Bureau (Ministry of Home Affairs). Read both texts before relying on it. NCRB table

73. Solitary confinement.

BNS 11

Leading cases

Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration (1978)Reading down Sections 30(2) and 56 of the Prisons Act, 1894, the Court held that a prisoner under sentence of death cannot be kept in solitary confinement and that bar fetters may be imposed only on recorded, individual safety grounds.

Practise questions on Criminal Law