Criminal Breach of Trust by a Public Servant or Banker Under the BNS (Section 316(5)): IPC 409 Mapping (2026)

Explainer · Criminal Law · BNS

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

A cashier at a bank, a government officer handling public money, or an agent holding a client’s funds is trusted with property that is not his own. When such a person dishonestly takes that property for himself, the law treats it as a graver wrong than an ordinary breach of trust, because the trust itself was greater. Since 1 July 2024, that aggravated offence is found in Section 316(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS), which replaced Section 409 of the Indian Penal Code. This explainer sets out what the offence is, how it maps to the old law, and what the punishment is. Last verified October 2026.

01The problem this section addresses

Criminal breach of trust is simple in idea. A person is given property, or control over property, for a purpose. Instead of using it for that purpose, he dishonestly keeps it, uses it, or disposes of it. That is the basic offence.

Some people hold property because of a position of special trust. A public servant handles government funds. A banker holds the money of depositors. A merchant, factor, broker, attorney or agent holds goods or money for a client. When one of these people commits breach of trust, the harm is wider, because the public or a client relied on the office itself. The law therefore sets a higher punishment for them.

This is the gap Section 316(5) fills. It does not create a new idea. It raises the stakes for people who break a trust that came with their office or profession.

02What Section 316(5) says

Section 316(5) of the BNS punishes aggravated criminal breach of trust. It applies to a person who is entrusted with property, or with any dominion over property, in his capacity as a public servant, or in the way of his business as a banker, merchant, factor, broker, attorney or agent, and who then commits criminal breach of trust in respect of that property.

Section 316 as a whole gathers the old scattered sections on breach of trust into one place:

The office is what makes it worse. A banker or a public servant who breaks a trust is punished more heavily than an ordinary person who does the same thing.

03Old law to new law: IPC 409 to BNS 316(5)

Section 316(5) of the BNS corresponds to Section 409 of the Indian Penal Code. Section 409 IPC was titled criminal breach of trust by a public servant, or by a banker, merchant or agent, and it carried the same punishment of life imprisonment, or up to ten years, with fine.

The real change is not in this subsection but in the structure around it. The IPC had separate sections for each grade of breach of trust: Section 405 (definition), Section 406 (general punishment), Section 407 (carrier), Section 408 (clerk or servant) and Section 409 (public servant or banker). The BNS folds all of them into a single Section 316 with numbered subsections. The old case law under Section 409 still explains the new Section 316(5), because the wording is carried over.

One substantive change sits nearby. The general punishment for breach of trust, now Section 316(2), was raised to five years, where the old Section 406 IPC allowed up to three years. The punishment in Section 316(5) itself, life or ten years, is the same as it was under Section 409.

04Punishment and classification

The maximum punishment under Section 316(5) is imprisonment for life, or imprisonment of either description for up to ten years, and the offender is also liable to fine. This is the heaviest grade of criminal breach of trust in the BNS.

On classification, the offence carried forward the features it had under Section 409 IPC. It is a cognizable and non-bailable offence, and it is non-compoundable. It is triable by a Magistrate of the First Class.

To understand these labels, see cognizable versus non-cognizable offences and compoundable versus non-compoundable offences. For the general idea of bail in such a case, see the types of bail in India.

05What the prosecution must prove

To bring a charge home under Section 316(5), the prosecution has to show three things, in plain terms.

• Entrustment. The accused was entrusted with the property, or given dominion over it. Without entrustment there is no breach of trust, only perhaps theft or cheating.
• The special capacity. The entrustment came to him in his role as a public servant, or in the course of his business as a banker, merchant, factor, broker, attorney or agent. This is the fact that lifts the offence from the general subsection into Section 316(5).
• Dishonest misappropriation. He dishonestly misappropriated or converted the property to his own use, or used or disposed of it in breach of a direction of law or a legal contract about how it was to be dealt with.

Courts have repeatedly said that entrustment and the dishonest intention are the heart of the offence. A mere failure to account, or a civil dispute over money, is not by itself breach of trust. The dishonest state of mind has to be shown.

06Practical points

• Check the date of the act. If the alleged breach happened on or after 1 July 2024, the charge is under Section 316(5) BNS. If it happened earlier, the IPC Section 409 label continues for that case.
• Separate the civil from the criminal. Many money disputes look like breach of trust but are really recovery matters. The dishonest intent at the time of entrustment or misuse is what makes it criminal.
• Watch for sanction. Where the accused is a public servant, a prosecution may need sanction from the competent authority. Check the current requirement before filing.
• Trace the property. Documents of entrustment, account statements and the paper trail of where the property went usually decide these cases.

For the wider vocabulary of a criminal case, see the glossary of Indian litigation terms. For a related new-code offence, see cheating with knowledge of wrongful loss under BNS Section 318(3).

07Where Claw fits

Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals.

A Section 316(5) charge rarely runs in a straight line. It moves through bail, framing of charge, trial and often an appeal, while the judgments reading the old Section 409 and the new Section 316 keep piling up. Claw carries more than 30 crore judgments, drawn from the Supreme Court since 1950 and the High Courts since 1990, so you can see how benches have treated breach of trust by a public servant or banker and pull court-ready citations in under five seconds. For a live prosecution, its tracking follows orders and hearings across 9,102 courts, benches and forums with automatic updates and alerts. You can search cases by party name or by advocate name, and see the full case search coverage across Indian courts.

Claw neither files nor defends the case and is no substitute for legal advice, and it does not use customer case documents to train its AI models, so a trust or account file you upload stays confidential. Set up a free Claw account to search and follow a breach-of-trust matter by party or advocate name.

08Sources and further reading

• Bare text of BNS Section 316: devgan.in
• Ministry of Home Affairs (new criminal laws): mha.gov.in
• India Code (official statute text): indiacode.nic.in
• Claw: clawlaw.in

This explainer is general information, not legal advice. The new codes are still being read and applied by the courts, so check the current text and take advice from counsel before you act.

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