Section 34 BNSS 2023: Duty of Village Officers and Residents to Make Certain Reports
Section 34 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 places an immediate reporting duty on specified village officers and every person residing in a village when they possess information about certain offenders, serious offences, suspicious deaths, missing persons, public-order risks and other matters listed in the section.
What Section 34 BNSS requires
The duty is to communicate the relevant information forthwith to the nearest Magistrate or the officer in charge of the nearest police station, whichever is nearer. The provision covers both officers connected with village administration and persons residing in the village.
- Information about notorious receivers or vendors of stolen property.
- Information about robbers, escaped convicts or proclaimed offenders.
- Information about non-bailable offences and specified offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
- Information about sudden, unnatural or suspicious deaths, discovered corpses and certain suspicious disappearances.
- Information about specified acts committed or intended outside India near the village which would amount to listed BNS offences if committed in India.
- Other matters affecting public order, crime prevention or safety where the District Magistrate has issued a duly sanctioned direction.
Text of Section 34, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023
34. (1) Every officer employed in connection with the affairs of a village and every person residing in a village shall forthwith communicate to the nearest Magistrate or to the officer in charge of the nearest police station, whichever is nearer, any information which he may possess respecting-
(a) the permanent or temporary residence of any notorious receiver or vendor of stolen property in or near such village;
(b) the resort to any place within, or the passage through, such village of any person whom he knows, or reasonably suspects, to be a robber, escaped convict or proclaimed offender;
(c) the commission of, or intention to commit, in or near such village any non-bailable offence or any offence punishable under section 189 and section 191 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023;
(d) the occurrence in or near such village of any sudden or unnatural death or of any death under suspicious circumstances or the discovery in or near such village of any corpse or part of a corpse, in circumstances which lead to a reasonable suspicion that such a death has occurred or the disappearance from such village of any person in circumstances which lead to a reasonable suspicion that a non-bailable offence has been committed in respect of such person;
(e) the commission of, or intention to commit, at any place out of India near such village any act which, if committed in India, would be an offence punishable under any of the following sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, namely, 103, 105, 111, 112, 113, 178 to 181 (both inclusive), 305, 307, 309 to 312 (both inclusive), clauses (f) and (g) of section 326, 331 or 332;
(f) any matter likely to affect the maintenance of order or the prevention of crime or the safety of person or property respecting which the District Magistrate, by general or special order made with the previous sanction of the State Government, has directed him to communicate information.
(2) In this section,-
(i) "village" includes village lands;
(ii) the expression "proclaimed offender" includes any person proclaimed as an offender by any Court or authority in any territory in India to which this Sanhita does not extend, in respect of any act which if committed in the territories to which this Sanhita extends, would be an offence punishable with imprisonment for ten years or more or with imprisonment for life or with death under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023;
(iii) the words "officer employed in connection with the affairs of the village" means a member of the panchayat of the village and includes the headman and every officer or other person appointed to perform any function connected with the administration of the village.
Meaning of important expressions
Village
For Section 34, the expression "village" expressly includes village lands. The reporting obligation is therefore not confined to the built-up residential portion of a village.
Proclaimed offender
The definition is extended to include a person proclaimed as an offender by a Court or authority in a territory in India to which the Sanhita does not extend, where the underlying act would, if committed in a territory to which the Sanhita extends, amount to a sufficiently serious offence under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
Officer employed in connection with village affairs
The expression includes a member of the village panchayat, the headman, and every officer or other person appointed to perform a function connected with village administration.
Why the provision matters
Section 34 creates a local information-sharing mechanism intended to bring serious crime, suspicious events and threats to public order promptly to the notice of a Magistrate or the police. Its use of the word "forthwith" indicates that the information is expected to be communicated without avoidable delay once the person has relevant information covered by the section.
This page is intended as a general legal-information resource. For litigation, investigation or compliance, verify the applicable official text, notifications and case-specific facts.