● Retained in BNS
An assembly of five or more people becomes an "unlawful assembly" if their common object is one of five listed grounds -- overawing the government, resisting the law, committing mischief or trespass, forcibly taking property or a right, or compelling unlawful conduct. BNS Section 189(1) reproduces this definition unchanged, now as part of a five-sub-section consolidated provision.
Section 141 IPC defined an assembly of five or more persons as unlawful if its common object was to overawe the government or Parliament/State Legislature by criminal force, resist execution of law or legal process, commit mischief, criminal trespass or another offence, forcibly take possession of property or a right, or compel a person to do or omit an act they were not legally bound to.
BNS Section 189 consolidates the old unlawful-assembly cluster into one section with five sub-sections. Sub-section (1) reproduces the five-ground definition and Explanation unchanged. Sub-sections (2)-(5) carry the punishment provisions formerly spread across separate sections (member liability and its punishment, joining after a dispersal order, being armed, and a related assembly-of-five offence).
The core definition is unchanged. The structural change is that roughly five separate IPC sections covering this cluster are consolidated into one section with five sub-sections.
This is a definitional provision; the punishment and its associated defences sit under the companion sub-sections, BNS 189(2) onward, and the rioting provisions IPC 147/149 (already published) that build on this definition.
Summaries are for general information and are not legal advice. For the authoritative bare-act text, see the official Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and Indian Penal Code, 1860 (full amended text, as it stood before repeal) on India Code, or the Ministry of Home Affairs' new criminal laws page. ← All comparisons