Code of Criminal Procedure

CrPC Full Form in English, letter by letter

CrPC is the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, India's main law on arrest, investigation, bail and trial, replaced by the BNSS in 2024.

CrPC Full Form in Indian Languages

If the Indian Penal Code said what a crime was, the CrPC, the Code of Criminal Procedure, said what the police and courts must do next. Its name in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Gujarati follows.

The 1973 code and what came before it

The Code of Criminal Procedure governed how a criminal case moved through the Indian system: registration of the FIR, arrest, remand, investigation, charge sheet, bail, trial, judgment and appeal. The offences themselves sat in the IPC, and procedure sat here.

The Act of 1973 came into force on 1 April 1974. It replaced the Code of 1898, which was itself the successor to earlier colonial codes. It ran to 484 sections and two schedules, and it was amended many times, notably in 2008 and 2009.

From 1 July 2024 it has been replaced by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023. Cases registered before that date continue under the older Code, which is why the CrPC is still cited.

Sections every Indian student of law learns

Section 154 dealt with the FIR for a cognizable offence. If the police refused to register it, the complainant could send the information to the Superintendent of Police under Section 154(3), or ask a Magistrate under Section 156(3) to order an investigation.

Section 41 and 41A covered arrest without a warrant and the notice of appearance, and Section 57 required that an arrested person be produced before a Magistrate within 24 hours, excluding travel time. Section 167 allowed the Magistrate to authorise detention while the investigation continued, with the accused entitled to default bail if the charge sheet was not filed in 60 or 90 days, depending on the offence.

Sections 436 to 439 dealt with bail, including anticipatory bail under Section 438, and Section 173 required the final police report. Sections 207 to 209 and the later chapters regulated how cases went from Magistrate to Sessions Court. Section 125, on maintenance for wives, children and parents, is another well-known provision outside the criminal trial pathway.

What the BNSS changed

Technology and forensics

The BNSS allows an FIR to be filed electronically (it must be signed within three days), permits electronic service of summonses, requires audio-video recording of searches and seizures, and makes forensic expert visits to the crime scene mandatory for offences punishable with seven years or more.

Timelines and numbering

It sets time limits for steps such as delivery of judgment after arguments and for informing victims about progress, and every section was renumbered. The FIR provision, for example, is now Section 173. The overall sequence of FIR, investigation, charge sheet, trial and appeal has remained the same.

Who still needs the old CrPC numbers

Judgments of the Supreme Court and High Courts decided before mid-2024 refer to CrPC sections, and lawyers cite them for the principles they laid down. Anyone reading older rulings has to translate the section numbers, and conversion tables are part of every practising lawyer's desk.

Law students, judicial services candidates and police recruits also still read the CrPC, since the BNSS follows its structure closely and exam papers often ask for both versions.

CrPC in competitive exams

SSC and UPSC papers, NDA and CDS, and state judicial services regularly test the full form, the year (1973, in force from 1 April 1974) and the 2024 replacement. Police recruitment papers focus on FIR sections, arrest rules and bail.

The abbreviation is spelt CrPC with a small r, and it means the same thing across fields. Do not confuse it with CPC, the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, which governs civil suits.

Old section, new section: a working list

If you read an old order, you will need the new numbers. FIR registration was Section 154 CrPC and is now Section 173 BNSS. Remand during investigation was Section 167 and is now Section 187. Notice of appearance instead of arrest, Section 41A, is now Section 35.

Anticipatory bail, which was Section 438, is now Section 482. Regular bail for non-bailable offences, Sections 437 and 439, became Sections 480 and 483. Maintenance for wife, children and parents, Section 125, is now Section 144, and the power to prohibit assemblies and issue urgent orders, Section 144, is now Section 163.

Note the trap in that last pair: the number 144 means a different thing in the two codes. A newspaper that says Section 144 was imposed in a district is still talking about the old CrPC power, now found in Section 163 BNSS. A student who learns only the new numbers will misread every older judgment, so keep a conversion chart beside your notes.

Law students should also practise the pattern in reverse: take a BNSS section from a recent news report and trace it back to the CrPC section it came from. The exercise makes the structure of the Code clear, since most new sections sit in the same chapter order as the old ones.

The CrPC was the second of the two books of Indian criminal law, the one that gave the process behind the charge. Its sections continue to appear in judgments and in the BNSS that replaced it.

CrPC Full Form: Common Questions