The Indian Penal Code (IPC) is the official criminal code of India. It is a comprehensive code intended to cover all substantive aspects of criminal law.

Long title
Citation	Act No. 45 of 1860
Territorial extent	India
Enacted by	Imperial Legislative Council
Enacted	6 October 1860
Assented to	6 October 1860
Commenced	1 January 1862
Committee report	First Law Commission

The code was drafted in 1860 on the recommendations of first law commission of India established in 1834 under the Charter Act of 1833 under the Chairmanship of Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay. It came into force in British India during the early British Raj period in 1862. However, it did not apply automatically in the Princely states, which had their own courts and legal systems until the 1940s. The Code has since been amended several times and is now supplemented by other criminal provisions.

History

The draft of the Indian Penal Code was prepared by the First Law Commission, chaired by Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1834 and was submitted to Governor-General of India Council in 1835. Based on a simplified codification of the law of England at the time, elements were also derived from the Napoleonic Code and from Edward Livingston‘s Louisiana Civil Code of 1825. The first final draft of the Indian Penal Code was submitted to the Governor-General of India in Council in 1837, but the draft was again revised. The drafting was completed in 1850 and the Code was presented to the Legislative Council in 1856, but it did not take its place on the statute book of British India until a generation later, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The draft then underwent a very careful revision at the hands of Barnes Peacock, who later became the first Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, and the future puisne judges of the Calcutta High Court, who were members of the Legislative Council, and was passed into law on 6 October 1860.^[4] The Code came into operation on 1 January 1862. Macaulay did not survive to see the penal code he wrote come into force, having died near the end of 1859. The code came into force in Jammu and Kashmir on 31 October 2019, by virtue of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, and replaced the state’s Ranbir Penal Code.

Acclaim

The Code is universally acknowledged as a cogently drafted code, ahead of its time. It has substantially survived for over 150 years in several jurisdictions without major amendments. Nicholas Phillips, Justice of Supreme Court of United Kingdom applauded the efficacy and relevance of IPC while commemorating 150 years of IPC.^[24] Modern crimes involving technology unheard of during Macaulay’s time fit easily within the Code^{[citation needed]} mainly because of the broadness of the Code’s drafting.

Objective

The objective of Indian penal code is to provide general PENAL CODE to the country .  providing the list of crimes along with their definitions and punishments .Indian Penal Code lay what is right and what is wrong and to lay down the punishment for committing such wrong.

Before IPC there was no such law there was same punishment as offence for example eye for eye & tooth for tooth so, one objective to make this code is to provide justice equally to every person for every offence.

Intention/ Mens-rea

In criminal law, the “intention” of committing the crime plays a huge role in deciding the liability of the offense.

The well-known Latin maxim enunciates the relation between mens rea and a crime in general. Actus reus means a wrongful act. Mens rea means a wrongful intention. The maxim means that an act does not itself make one guilty unless the mind is also guilty.

There are usually five stages of committing the crime –

• Motive
• Intention
• Preparation
• Attempt
• Commission

CrPC & IPC

1.  The IPC provides a substantive list of all crimes and lays down the punishment for each one of them. For example, Section 378 defines Theft as “Whoever, intending to take dishonestly any moveable property out of the possession of any person without that per­son’s consent, moves that property in order to such taking, is said to commit theft.” The punishment for the offence of theft is spelt out under Section 379 in the following words, “Whoever commits theft shall be pun­ished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.” On the other hand, CrPC is a procedural law, and it lays down the ways or methods to be followed in a criminal case. So if a person is charged with ‘theft’, it is the CrPC which provides further details as to how the investigation would be carried out, how evidence will be collected etc. So CrPC concerns itself with the procedural aspect of the crime.

• The primary purpose of IPC is to provide a general penal code for India which prescribes punishments to wrong-doers. The primary goal of CrPC is to consolidate the criminal law in the country.

• The Indian Penal Code is a substantive law whereas, the Code of Criminal Procedure is procedural law.