Duty of officers employed in connection with affairs of a village to make certain report.
- (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, 331or 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 under any of the 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.
Read also Section 27 of THE BHARATIYA NAGARIK SURAKSHA SANHITA, 2023 – BNSS