Offences Against Public Health — Adulteration of Food and Drugs

Sections 274 to 277 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) — re-enacting Sections 272 to 276 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) — punish the family of offences that protect public health from contaminated food, drink, and drugs. The chapter has two parts. The first part — Sections 274 and 275 BNS — covers food and drink: adulterating any article so as to make it noxious, and selling any article that has been rendered noxious. The second part — Sections 276 to 278 BNS — covers drugs: adulterating any drug or medical preparation, selling such an adulterated drug, and selling a drug as a different drug. The IPC fines of one thousand rupees have been raised across the chapter to five thousand rupees; the upper limit of imprisonment for adulterating drugs has been doubled from six months to one year. The substantive ingredients are otherwise unchanged.

The chapter sits within the wider scheme of IPC and BNS notes on offences against public health. Section 274 BNS shares its mens-rea structure with Section 273 BNS for sale of noxious food, with Section 271 BNS for negligence likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life, and with the broader law of public-health offences in Sections 270 to 297 BNS. Co-extensive special-statute regimes — the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 — operate alongside; the Code provisions remain available as the lex generalis.

Statutory anchor — Section 274 BNS

The substantive ingredients carry forward unchanged from Section 272 IPC. The single textual reform is in the upper limit of the fine — five thousand rupees, replacing the IPC's one thousand rupees ceiling. The State amendments by Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal — which raise the punishment to life imprisonment and make the offence cognisable, non-bailable, and triable by Sessions — survive the BNS unless and until the State Legislature substitutes them.

Five ingredients of Section 274 BNS

1. Article of food or drink — meant to be consumed by living persons. The Supreme Court in Joseph Kurian v. State of Kerala (AIR 1995) restated this requirement: the prosecution must prove that the article is one to be consumed.
2. Adulteration — mixing with any other substance, whether wholly different or of the same kind but of inferior quality. Definition refined in Ram Dayal v. State (1923) and applied across the IPC line.
3. Noxious as food or drink — unwholesome or injurious to health. The article must be made poisonous, harmful, or both. Mere repugnance to one's feelings does not satisfy this element.
4. Intended for sale, or known to be likely sold — the offence is complete on introduction of the adulterant, provided the article is meant for sale, actual or likely. Joseph Kurian (1995).
5. Mens rea — intention to sell as food or drink, or knowledge of likelihood of such sale. The mens rea is in the disjunctive: either suffices.

The "noxious" requirement — what makes adulteration criminal

The boundary case is the cheap-but-not-noxious adulteration. The Madras ruling in Chinniah (1897) held that mixing water with milk for profit, without rendering the milk harmful, is not an offence under Section 272 IPC (now Section 274 BNS). The Calcutta ruling in Chokraj Marwari (1908) extended the same reasoning to mixing ghee with vegetable oil. The mens rea — to make the article noxious — is the gravamen of the offence; profit by inferior-quality dilution, however dishonest, falls outside it. Such conduct is, of course, prosecutable under the special statutes, including the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, and may also constitute cheating under Section 318 BNS if the buyer is induced to part with money for an article of represented quality.

The Allahabad ruling in Ram Dayal v. State (1923) gave the working definition of "noxious as food": unwholesome as food or injurious to health, not merely repugnant. The Bombay High Court in Suleman Shamji (1943) added that the prosecution must prove not only adulteration but also the intent to sell or the knowledge that the article would be likely sold.

Section 275 BNS — sale of noxious food or drink

Section 275 BNS punishes the seller, as Section 274 BNS punishes the adulterator. The offence is complete when a person sells, or offers or exposes for sale, as food or drink, any article which has been rendered or has become noxious, or is in a state unfit for food or drink, knowing or having reason to believe that the article is noxious as food or drink. The IPC predecessor is Section 273; the BNS preserves the substantive ingredients and raises the fine.

The Bombay High Court in Dilipsinh Ramsinh Bhatia v. State of Maharashtra (2010) gave the definitional gloss for "noxious" in Section 273 IPC (now Section 275 BNS): an article that earlier was not noxious but has become noxious or has been rendered noxious by lapse of time or by not taking proper precaution or by not adding preservatives. The seller's mens rea — knowledge or reason to believe — is decisive; an honestly-mistaken seller without reason to believe is not guilty.

Section 276 BNS — adulteration of drugs

Section 276 BNS punishes a person who adulterates any drug or medical preparation in such a manner as to lessen the efficacy or change the operation of such drug or preparation, or to make it noxious, intending that it shall be sold or used for any medicinal purpose, or knowing it to be likely that it will be so sold or used. The IPC predecessor is Section 274 IPC. The BNS reforms are two: the upper limit of imprisonment is doubled from six months to one year, and the fine is raised from one thousand rupees to five thousand rupees. The mens rea structure mirrors Section 274 BNS for food.

The drugs offence is the most consequential public-health offence in the chapter. Substandard drugs cause direct medical harm in a way that adulterated food rarely does at the same scale. The doubled imprisonment ceiling reflects the Legislature's heightened concern with drug-supply integrity, and aligns the Section with the special-statute scheme under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. Concurrent prosecution under both statutes is permissible — see the principle settled in Mahesh Ramchandra Jadhav v. State of Maharashtra (1999).

Section 277 BNS — sale of adulterated drugs

Section 277 BNS punishes a person who sells, or offers or exposes for sale, or issues from a dispensary for medicinal purposes, any drug or medical preparation, knowing the drug or preparation to have been adulterated in any of the ways described in Section 276. The IPC predecessor is Section 275; the substantive ingredients are unchanged; the fine is raised to five thousand rupees. The seller-side offence operates as the practical battleground in most prosecutions because the original adulterator is often untraceable while the seller is identifiable through the chain of custody.

Section 278 BNS — sale of drug as a different drug or preparation

Section 278 BNS punishes a person who knowingly sells, or offers or exposes for sale, or issues from a dispensary for medicinal purposes, any drug or medical preparation as a different drug or medical preparation. The IPC predecessor is Section 276. The offence captures the practical pattern where a substitute drug is supplied in place of the prescribed one — a fraud on the prescribing physician and the patient alike. The fine is raised to five thousand rupees; the imprisonment ceiling of six months is unchanged.

The IPC–special-statute interface

The interaction between the BNS adulteration provisions and the special statutes is well settled. The Supreme Court in Mahesh Ramchandra Jadhav v. State of Maharashtra (1999) held that there is no provision in the (then) Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 — superseded by the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 — that nullifies Sections 272 and 273 IPC (now Sections 274 and 275 BNS) or makes them dormant. The Bombay High Court in Rajiv Kumar Gupta v. State of Maharashtra (2005) reinforced that authorities under the special statute have jurisdiction to launch prosecutions under both regimes on the same averments.

The Karnataka High Court in Christy Fried Gram Industry v. State of Karnataka (2016) added an important procedural caveat: even if Section 270 IPC (now Section 272 BNS) is invoked for supply of substandard food articles, the special procedure laid down under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 — especially the testing protocol — should be followed. The Bombay High Court in Ganesh Pandurang Jadhao v. State of Maharashtra (2016) clarified that the sample must be sent to an analyst before a Section 272 IPC charge can be sustained on a "noxious" finding; mere violation of an order of the Food Safety Commissioner is not the offence.

State amendments — Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal

Three State Legislatures had, by the time the BNS came into force, raised the punishment for these offences to life imprisonment, sometimes coupled with fine, and made the offences cognisable, non-bailable, and triable by Sessions. The Orissa amendment (Orissa Act 3 of 1999), the Uttar Pradesh amendment (UP Act 47 of 1975), and the West Bengal amendments (WB Act 42 of 1973 and WB Act 34 of 1974) substantially raise the punishment grid for Sections 272 to 276 IPC. The BNS does not expressly preserve or repeal these State amendments; the constitutional position is that, until the State Legislature acts, the State amendments continue to operate on the corresponding BNS sections by force of Article 254 read with the saving language of Section 1 BNS.

The procedural posture — sampling, analyst's report, and proof

The proof framework for adulteration prosecutions is unusual within the BNS. Direct evidence of mens rea is rare; the prosecution relies almost entirely on the sample analysis. The Food Safety Officer (or the Drugs Inspector for drug offences) collects the sample under the special-statute procedure; the public analyst's report establishes the noxious or substandard quality; the chain of custody must be intact. The reverse-burden presumptions of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, on documentary genuineness assist the prosecution where the analyst's report is challenged, but the foundational facts of sampling and custody must still be proved.

The right to a counter-analysis — supplied by the special statute in both the food and the drugs regimes — is a constitutional protection grounded in due process. The Supreme Court has consistently held that denial of a meaningful right to a counter-analysis can vitiate the prosecution. The shelf-life of the sample, the seal integrity, and the independence of the analyst are all material; defence counsel routinely cross-examine on each of these foundational facts before testing the report's substantive conclusions. A noxious-finding that survives challenge on procedure is the surest evidentiary foundation; a noxious-finding flawed on procedure is the most common ground of acquittal in adulteration prosecutions.

Mens rea — intent to sell or knowledge of likely sale

The mens rea structure of the chapter is in the disjunctive. The Section 274 BNS adulterator must intend to sell as food or drink, or know that the article is likely to be so sold. The Section 275 BNS seller must know or have reason to believe that the article is noxious. The Section 276 BNS drug-adulterator must intend the drug to be sold or used for medicinal purposes. The Section 277 BNS drug-seller must know that the drug has been adulterated. The Section 278 BNS substitute-seller must know that the drug being sold is a different drug from what is represented.

The disjunctive structure is consequential. A bulk-stockist with no immediate intent to sell may still be guilty under Section 274 BNS if it can be shown that he knew the article was likely to be sold downstream — a typical fact-pattern in supply-chain prosecutions. The principle aligns with the wider mens-rea theory in the law of definitions and the mens-rea framework under Section 2 BNS.

Cognate offences and overlap

Adulteration overlaps with several other Code offences. Where the consumption causes death, Section 105 BNS for culpable homicide not amounting to murder may attach if the prosecution establishes the requisite mental element under Section 100(b) BNS — knowledge that the act is so imminently dangerous that it must in all probability cause death. Where the adulterator is part of an organised network, Section 111 BNS may attach. Where the adulteration is in support of a cheating scheme, Section 318 BNS attaches concurrently. Where the adulterator forges labelling, the law of forgery and false property marks under Sections 335 to 350 BNS attaches concurrently.

Procedural matters — cognisability, bail, trial

Under the First Schedule of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), the basic offences under Sections 274 to 278 BNS are non-cognisable, bailable, and triable by any Magistrate. The State amendments where applicable elevate the offences to cognisable, non-bailable, and Sessions-triable. Compounding is generally not permitted because the offences are against public health and the victim is the community, not an individual; the prosecution proceeds on the State's complaint.

Sentencing patterns and BNS recalibration

The IPC's one-thousand-rupee fine ceiling had become symbolic by 2023 — a ceiling that did not deter sustained adulteration in any meaningful market. The BNS recalibration to five thousand rupees, while still modest, restores some punitive logic. The doubled imprisonment ceiling for drug adulteration under Section 276 BNS reflects the Legislature's heightened concern with drug supply. Community service as a sentencing option under Section 4 BNS is, in principle, available for the basic offences; trial courts apply the proportionality principle from the law of punishment under Sections 4 to 13 BNS when choosing between fine and imprisonment.

The constitutional dimension — Article 21 and food safety

The right to be free from unsafe food is part of the right to life under Article 21. The Supreme Court has read Article 21 to include the right to a clean environment, the right to safe drinking water, and the right to food of acceptable quality. The criminal law of adulteration is the State's principal tool for honouring this dimension of Article 21, alongside the regulatory tools of the Food Safety and Standards Act and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act. The State's positive duty to enforce food and drug safety is part of its constitutional obligation; the BNS provisions are a material constituent of that enforcement architecture.

Comparative perspective — recent High Court trends

Three trends in recent High Court jurisprudence are worth flagging. First, courts increasingly insist on strict adherence to the Food Safety and Standards Act sampling protocol even where the BNS provision is invoked alongside the special statute. The Supreme Court's reasoning in the law of general exceptions on the protective role of procedural safeguards informs this trend. Second, courts treat sentencing in adulteration prosecutions as a serious matter where the article involved is a drug or a baby-food product, even where the maximum punishment is six months — short imprisonment with a substantial fine has become the typical sentence. Third, courts have opened the door to enhanced charges where the prosecution can establish that the adulterator was part of an organised scheme — concurrent prosecution under Section 61 BNS for criminal conspiracy and the BNS organised-crime provision is now common in large supply-chain cases.

The Allahabad High Court, applying the State amendment, has on several occasions sentenced repeat-offender drug adulterators to substantial terms approaching the State-amended life-imprisonment ceiling. The pattern is most visible in spurious-medicine prosecutions where the analyst's report establishes that the article was passed off as a registered drug despite containing none of the active pharmaceutical ingredient. The doctrinal alignment with Section 318 BNS for cheating is exact — the patient is induced to part with money for a drug of represented composition. The State amendment's life-imprisonment ceiling is justified, on a doctrinal level, by the potential for mass casualty in the drug-supply chain and by the special vulnerability of the patient who cannot independently verify the article's quality at the point of consumption.

Burden-shifting and statutory presumptions under the special statutes

The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, contain a number of statutory presumptions that materially shift the evidentiary burden once the prosecution establishes the foundational facts. The presumptions do not, however, attach directly to the BNS provisions. Where the prosecution proceeds under both regimes, the trial court must keep the two evidentiary frameworks separate — the special-statute presumptions assist the special-statute prosecution; the BNS prosecution stands on its own evidentiary footing. The Bombay High Court in Joseph Kurian (1995) had already alluded to this distinction; the BNS does not alter it.

MCQ angle — what state-judiciary papers test

Examiners test adulteration in three recurring fact-patterns. First, the cheap-but-not-noxious trap — a fact-pattern where milk is diluted with water for profit but not made harmful; the candidate must spot that this is not Section 274 BNS but may be cheating or a special-statute offence. Second, the seller's mens rea — a fact-pattern where the seller did not know the article was noxious; the candidate must spot that knowledge or reason to believe is essential under Section 275 BNS. Third, the special-statute interface — a fact-pattern where the prosecution proceeds under both the BNS and the Food Safety and Standards Act; the candidate must spot that concurrent prosecution is permitted but the special-statute sampling procedure must be followed. Cross-doctrinal questions about the boundary between adulteration and culpable homicide where consumption causes death, and between adulteration and cheating, also feature.