Whoever, knowing or having reason to believe that an offence has been committed, causes
any evidence of the commission of that offence to disappear, with the intention of screening the offender
from legal punishment, or with that intention gives any information respecting the offence which he
knows or believes to be false shall,\u2014
(a) if the offence which he knows or believes to have been committed is punishable with death,
be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and
shall also be liable to fine;
(b) if the offence is punishable with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment which may
extend to ten years, be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend
to three years, and shall also be liable to fine;
(c) if the offence is punishable with imprisonment for any term not extending to ten years, be
punished with imprisonment of the description provided for the offence, for a term which may extend
to one-fourth part of the longest term of the imprisonment provided for the offence, or with fine, or
with both.
Illustration.
A, knowing that B has murdered Z, assists B to hide the body with the intention of screening B from
punishment. A is liable to imprisonment of either description for seven years, and also to fine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BNS Section 238.\u00a0\u00a0 Causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender. Whoever, knowing or having reason to believe that an offence has been committed, causesany evidence of the commission of that offence to disappear, with the intention of screening the offenderfrom legal punishment, or with that intention gives any information […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/expertvakil.com\/indiankanoon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-bharatiya-nyaya-sanhita-bns-section-238.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"BNS Section 238","footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[110,119,104,109,120,105,118,108,111,112,117,121,122,113,114,115],"class_list":["post-2756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bharatiya-nyaya-sanhita-bns","tag-bharatiya-nyaya-sanhita","tag-bharatiya-nyaya-sanhita-in-english","tag-bns","tag-bns-2023","tag-bns-english","tag-bns-section","tag-bns-section-in-english","tag-bns-sections-list","tag-expert-vakil","tag-expertvakil","tag-expertvakil-bns","tag-indian-kanoon","tag-indiankanoon","tag-ishan-tathagat","tag-ishantathagat","tag-new-ipc"],"yoast_head":"\n