# BNSS statutory timelines checklist for criminal lawyers in 2026

**TL;DR:** The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 wrote a large number of express day-counts into criminal procedure that the CrPC left to practice or case law. This checklist runs stage by stage, from FIR to mercy petition, with the section, who owes the duty, and what happens if it slips. Some deadlines carry a hard consequence, mostly default bail; many are directory, meaning a missed date is an argument, not an automatic remedy.

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## On this page

- [Why this checklist exists](#why-this-checklist-exists)
- [Pre-FIR and FIR stage](#pre-fir-and-fir-stage)
- [Arrest and custody](#arrest-and-custody)
- [Investigation](#investigation)
- [Default bail and how it interacts with the chargesheet clock](#default-bail-and-how-it-interacts-with-the-chargesheet-clock)
- [Committal, framing of charge, and discharge](#committal-framing-of-charge-and-discharge)
- [Trial](#trial)
- [Post-judgment](#post-judgment)
- [Mandatory versus directory: what actually happens if a deadline is missed](#mandatory-versus-directory-what-actually-happens-if-a-deadline-is-missed)
- [The custody-to-default-bail timeline](#the-custody-to-default-bail-timeline)
- [Frequently asked questions](#frequently-asked-questions)

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## Why this checklist exists

The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 fixed relatively few hard deadlines. Production before a magistrate within 24 hours and the 60/90-day default bail window under Section 167 were the two every lawyer knew by heart; most of the rest of the process ran on practice, local circular, and judicial discretion.

The BNSS carries forward the CrPC's structure but adds an unusually large number of express day-counts on top of it: for preliminary inquiry, for forensic visits, for charge framing, for judgment pronouncement, for mercy petitions. A missed one is not automatically fatal to the prosecution or the defence, but it is now something the other side can point to in writing, with a section number attached.

This checklist covers only the timelines that could be verified against the enacted BNSS text, drawing on the [PRS Legislative Research bill track](https://prsindia.org/billtrack/the-bharatiya-nagarik-suraksha-sanhita-2023) for legislative history and cross-checked against reported judgments on [Indian Kanoon](https://indiankanoon.org/search/?formInput=%22Section%20187%22%20BNSS%20default%20bail) that cite the same section and day-count. Some frequently repeated numbers turned out to be wrong once checked against the primary text; those are flagged separately below rather than silently corrected, because the error is common enough to be worth naming. Where a consequence is genuinely unsettled, the entry says so rather than guessing. The canonical text sits on [India Code](https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/20062); this piece treats that as the reference copy and flags anywhere a widely used secondary source departs from it.

A note on scope: this is a working checklist, not a section-by-section commentary on the BNSS. It does not attempt to map every CrPC provision to its BNSS equivalent; for that cross-reference, see the companion piece on [CrPC to BNSS section mapping](/blog/bnss-crpc-section-mapping). It also does not revisit whether pre-BNS case law survives under the BNS; that question is covered separately in [do IPC precedents apply under the BNS](/blog/do-ipc-precedents-apply-under-bns).

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## Pre-FIR and FIR stage

**Preliminary inquiry before FIR registration.** For a cognizable offence punishable with three years or more but less than seven years, the officer in charge of a police station may, with the prior permission of an officer not below the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police, conduct a preliminary inquiry to establish whether a prima facie case exists, instead of registering an FIR immediately. That inquiry must be completed within **fourteen days**. The duty sits with the investigating police station. There is no express statutory consequence for exceeding the fourteen days; the provision does not say the FIR must then be registered automatically, and courts have treated the fourteen-day figure as the outer limit of the inquiry rather than a bar on later registration. Several High Courts have noted the fourteen-day window is frequently exceeded in practice, which is precisely why an aggrieved complainant should track it. Section 173(3) BNSS.

**Free copy of the FIR to the informant.** Once information about a cognizable offence is recorded, a copy of it must be given, free of cost, to the informant or the victim. The statute uses the word "forthwith," not a numbered day-count, so the duty is immediate rather than time-boxed. The duty sits with the officer in charge of the police station. Failure does not void the FIR, but it is a documented lapse that can be raised in a complaint to the Superintendent of Police or in a writ. Section 173(2) BNSS.

**Zero FIR.** Every police officer must register an FIR for a cognizable offence regardless of where it occurred; the FIR is then transferred to the police station with territorial jurisdiction. The statute does not fix a separate number of days for that transfer, only that the FIR itself must be registered without regard to jurisdiction. The duty is on the receiving police station. A refusal to register can be escalated in writing to the Superintendent of Police under the BNSS complaint route, or taken to the jurisdictional Magistrate. Whether the offence had to be registered at all in the first place often turns on the [cognizable versus non-cognizable](/blog/cognizable-vs-non-cognizable) classification, which decides whether the police can act without a magistrate's order. Section 173(1) BNSS.

**Electronic FIR (e-FIR).** Information about a cognizable offence may be given by electronic communication. Where it is, the informant must physically sign it within **three days** of the electronic submission for it to be taken on record. If the informant does not sign within that window, the record made electronically is not treated as taken on record under the section; the consequence is that the e-FIR does not crystallise into a formal FIR until signed. Section 173(1)(ii) BNSS.

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## Arrest and custody

**Production before a magistrate.** A person arrested without a warrant must be taken before a magistrate, or an officer in charge of a police station, without unnecessary delay, and in any event not later than **24 hours** after arrest, excluding travel time from the place of arrest to the magistrate's court. This is the constitutional floor under Article 22(2) of the Constitution, restated in the BNSS. Breach makes the further detention unlawful and grounds a habeas corpus petition; it is treated as mandatory, not directory, given the constitutional backing. Sections 58 and 187(1) BNSS. None of this stage's deadlines are relevant if the person secures protection before arrest in the first place; that is the separate track covered in [anticipatory bail under BNSS section 482](/blog/anticipatory-bail-bnss-section-482).

**Information to a relative or friend on arrest.** The police officer making the arrest must forthwith inform a relative, friend, or other person named by the arrestee of the arrest and the place of detention, and must also inform the district's designated police officer. An entry recording who was informed must be made in the police station register, and the magistrate before whom the arrestee is produced must satisfy himself the duty was complied with. The statute uses "forthwith," not a fixed number of hours. Non-compliance is a factor a magistrate is required to check at the first production, and its absence can support a bail or illegal-detention argument, though it does not by itself void the arrest. Section 48 BNSS.

**Medical examination of the arrested person.** Every arrested person must be examined by a medical officer, or if unavailable a registered medical practitioner, "soon after the arrest is made." Again, no fixed hour-count; the standard is promptness, not a specific clock. Where the arrestee is a woman, the examination must be conducted by, or under the supervision of, a female medical officer or practitioner. This is separate from the medical examination a police officer may request at the investigation stage to gather evidence of an offence under Section 51 BNSS, and from the specific medical-examination procedure for a person accused of rape under Section 52 BNSS. Section 53 BNSS.

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## Investigation

**Investigation completion for certain sexual offences.** Investigation into offences under specified sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita covering sexual offences, and the corresponding POCSO provisions, must be completed within **two months** from the date the information was recorded. This is an investigation-completion deadline, distinct from the general chargesheet-filing clock discussed below. Section 193(2) BNSS.

**Progress-of-investigation update to the informant or victim.** The investigating officer must inform the informant or victim of the progress of the investigation, by any means including electronic communication, within **ninety days**. This is a communication duty, not a filing deadline; the investigation itself can still be ongoing at that point. Section 193(3)(ii) BNSS.

**Mandatory forensic visit for serious offences.** For any offence punishable with imprisonment of seven years or more, a forensic expert must visit the crime scene to collect evidence, and the process must be videographed. This is a structural requirement, not discretionary. Two qualifications matter for a working checklist: first, the State Government notifies the date from which this becomes operative in that state, within a window of up to five years from the BNSS coming into force, so the requirement is being phased in unevenly across states rather than applying uniformly from 1 July 2024; second, where forensic facility is not available in a state, that state must, until it develops the facility, notify the use of another state's facility. A defence argument built on the absence of a forensic visit should first confirm whether the requirement was in force in that state on the relevant date, a phase-in detail confirmed against the [enacted Bill text on PRS](https://prsindia.org/billtrack/the-bharatiya-nagarik-suraksha-sanhita-2023). Section 176(3) BNSS.

**Case diary.** The investigating officer must enter the day's proceedings in a case diary day by day, recording the time the information reached him, the time investigation began and closed each day, the places visited, and the circumstances ascertained. Witness statements recorded during investigation are inserted into the diary. This is a continuous, day-to-day documentation duty rather than a single deadline; a court may call for the diary during inquiry or trial to aid it, though it is not itself evidence. Section 192 BNSS.

**Further investigation during trial.** Nothing prevents further investigation after the police report has been forwarded, and where further evidence is obtained a supplementary report is filed. Where further investigation is sought once trial has begun, it requires the court's permission and must be completed within **ninety days**, extendable with the court's further permission. Section 193(9) BNSS.

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## Default bail and how it interacts with the chargesheet clock

This is the timeline most likely to change the outcome of a matter, so it is worth setting out precisely rather than compressing it into a single number.

When a person is arrested and it appears the investigation cannot be completed within the 24-hour production window, the investigating officer forwards the accused to a Judicial Magistrate along with the case diary entries. The Magistrate may authorise detention in custody, in the first instance for up to **fifteen days** at a time. Beyond that fifteen-day tranche, the Magistrate may continue to authorise detention, but the outer limit on total custody before the accused acquires a right to be released on bail is:

- **Ninety days**, where the investigation relates to an offence punishable with death, imprisonment for life, or imprisonment for a term of not less than ten years.
- **Sixty days**, for any other offence.

On the expiry of that ninety-day or sixty-day period, the accused is entitled to be released on bail if prepared to furnish it, and that release is treated as bail under the ordinary bail chapter of the BNSS, not as an acquittal or discharge. This is what practitioners call default bail, and it is the same underlying mechanism as Section 167(2) of the old CrPC.

A widely repeated error attributes this 60/90-day clock to Section 193 BNSS. It does not sit there. Section 193 is the provision on the police report at the end of investigation, and it carries its own, separate deadlines (the two-month sexual-offence investigation limit and the ninety-day informant-update duty set out above). The 60/90-day custody clock that triggers default bail is **Section 187(3) BNSS**. The practical consequence of citing the wrong section in a bail application is avoidable and easy to check before filing: read Section 187(3) itself, or the [reported orders citing it on Indian Kanoon](https://indiankanoon.org/search/?formInput=%22Section%20187%22%20BNSS%20default%20bail), rather than relying on a secondary summary.

The interaction that matters for a working file: the chargesheet does not have its own free-standing "must be filed by day 60/90" obligation written as such anywhere in the BNSS. What exists is Section 187(3)'s cap on pre-chargesheet custody. If the chargesheet is not filed and the custody clock runs out, the accused's entitlement to bail crystallises, provided the accused applies for it and is prepared to furnish bail, promptly, before the chargesheet is actually filed. Filing the chargesheet even a day before the application is made and processed can defeat an otherwise valid default bail claim, which is why the deadline needs docketing, not just awareness. For the mechanics of drafting that application once the clock has run, see [drafting a bail application under the BNSS](/blog/drafting-bail-application-guide), and for how this statutory right sits alongside the constitutional bail-not-jail doctrine, see [the Article 21 bail rule](/blog/bail-rule-jail-exception-article-21).

Default bail under Section 187(3) is available regardless of whether the offence is bailable in the ordinary sense; it is a right that accrues from the delay itself, separate from the [bailable versus non-bailable](/blog/bailable-vs-non-bailable) classification that governs bail as of right at other stages of a case.

Because the custody clock runs from the date of arrest and the consequence depends on catching the exact expiry date, tracking it against the correct section text matters more than tracking it against a remembered day-count. A [citator that links the BNSS text directly to reported orders](https://niyam.ai) applying it removes the step of separately searching for whether Section 187(3) has been read differently by a particular High Court.

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## Committal, framing of charge, and discharge

**Committal proceedings.** Where the accused appears or is brought before a magistrate and the offence is triable exclusively by the Court of Session, committal proceedings must be completed within **ninety days** from the date of taking cognizance. That period may be extended by the magistrate for a further period not exceeding **180 days**, for reasons recorded in writing. Section 232 BNSS.

**Discharge application.** After committal, the accused may file an application for discharge within **sixty days** from the date of committal. The sessions judge decides it on the record and the submissions made, without a fresh trial of the question. Section 250 BNSS.

**Framing of charge, Sessions Court.** If the judge does not discharge the accused, and the offence is exclusively triable by the Court of Session, the charge must be framed in writing within **sixty days** from the date of the first hearing on charge. Section 251(1)(b) BNSS.

**Framing of charge, Magistrate's Court.** The same sixty-day figure from the date of first hearing on charge applies to charge framing before a Magistrate in a warrant case, not only before the Court of Session. Section 263 BNSS.

None of these three deadlines carries an express statutory penalty for the court missing them; they function as administrative benchmarks a lawyer can cite in an application to expedite, rather than grounds for automatic discharge or acquittal if exceeded.

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## Trial

**Day-to-day trial and adjournment limits.** Once witnesses are in attendance, an inquiry or trial is to continue from day to day until all attending witnesses have been examined, unless the court records reasons for adjourning beyond the next day. A remand of the accused to custody under this adjournment power cannot exceed **fifteen days** at a time. Where witnesses are present, an adjournment or postponement without examining them requires special recorded reasons. At a party's request, an adjournment can be granted only where the circumstances are beyond that party's control, and even then not more than **two adjournments** may be granted after hearing the other side and recording reasons; an advocate being engaged in another court is expressly excluded as a ground. Section 346 BNSS.

**Trial completion for certain sexual offences.** Where the trial relates to specified sexual offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the trial itself must be completed within **two months** from the date the chargesheet was filed. This is a separate, later-stage clock from the two-month investigation-completion deadline in Section 193(2) discussed above; one runs from FIR to chargesheet, the other from chargesheet to verdict. Section 346(1), proviso.

**Judgment pronouncement, general rule.** In any Criminal Court of original jurisdiction, judgment is to be pronounced in open court immediately after the trial ends, or at some subsequent time not later than **forty-five days** after termination of the trial, with notice given to the parties or their advocates. Section 392(1) BNSS.

**Judgment pronouncement, Sessions Court trials.** For a Sessions Court trial specifically, the judge must give judgment as soon as possible, within **thirty days** of the completion of arguments, extendable to **forty-five days** for reasons recorded in writing. This is the provision most often garbled in secondary summaries, sometimes as "30 days extendable to 45" cited against the wrong section, sometimes confused with the unrelated 30-day period in Section 117(2) BNSS, which fixes the deadline for a court to confirm a seizure or attachment of property, not a judgment. The correct citation for the sessions-trial judgment clock is [Section 258(1) BNSS](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/124700232/); the correct citation for the default, court-of-any-kind rule is Section 392(1) BNSS. Neither section states that a judgment delivered after the deadline is void, and no reported authority treats a late judgment as a nullity on that ground alone; a party can press for expedition, including by moving the [High Court under Article 226](/blog/high-courts-article-226), but the deadline functions as directory rather than as a hard bar on validity, a position also reflected in reported orders tracked on [Bar and Bench](https://www.barandbench.com/topic/bnss). A related but distinct discipline applies to reserved judgments awaiting pronouncement in the High Courts themselves, covered separately in [the three-month judgment pronouncement rule](/blog/judgments-three-month-pronouncement-rule).

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## Post-judgment

**Copy of judgment to the accused.** Where the accused is sentenced to imprisonment, a copy of the judgment must be given to him free of cost immediately after pronouncement. On application, a certified copy, or a translation where the accused wants one, must be given without delay, free of cost wherever the judgment is appealable by the accused. Where a death sentence is passed or confirmed by a High Court, a certified copy must be given immediately and automatically, without the accused needing to apply for it. Section 404 BNSS. Where the automatic free copy does not cover a particular need, for instance a certified copy for a co-accused or for use in a separate proceeding, the ordinary [certified copy of judgment](/blog/certified-copy-of-judgment) process and its own fee and limitation rules apply.

**Mercy petition timelines.** A convict under a death sentence, or a legal heir or relative, may file a mercy petition with the Governor under Article 161 or the President under Article 72 within **thirty days** of the date on which the Superintendent of the Jail informs the convict of the dismissal of an appeal or special leave petition by the Supreme Court, or of the confirmation of the death sentence by the High Court where the time to appeal has expired. If the Governor rejects or disposes of the petition, an application to the President must follow within **sixty days** of that rejection. Where there is more than one convict in the same case, the Jail Superintendent must ensure all of them file within **sixty days**. The Central Government must seek the state government's comments and make its recommendation to the President within **sixty days** of receiving those comments and the case record. Once the President decides, the Central Government must communicate that decision to the state and jail authorities within **forty-eight hours**. [Section 472 BNSS](https://indiankanoon.org/doc/167779353/). This section, not "Section 472-473," is the sole source for all five of these figures; a commonly repeated version of this checklist cites a two-section span that does not correspond to the enacted text.

**Appeal periods.** Limitation periods for filing a criminal appeal are set by the Limitation Act, 1963, not by the BNSS. This checklist does not state specific day-counts for appeal limitation, because that figure sits in a different statute and was outside what could be verified against a primary source in the course of preparing this piece; check the applicable Limitation Act article for the forum and order being appealed before relying on any number quoted elsewhere.

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## Mandatory versus directory: what actually happens if a deadline is missed

The single most useful thing this checklist can do is separate the timelines that produce an automatic remedy from the ones that are simply administrative benchmarks.

| Timeline | Section | Consequence if missed |
|---|---|---|
| Production before magistrate, 24 hours | Sections 58, 187(1) | ✗ Mandatory. Continued detention becomes unlawful; grounds habeas corpus. |
| Custody clock, 60/90 days | Section 187(3) | ✗ Mandatory. Accused entitled to default bail on furnishing bail before chargesheet is filed. |
| Preliminary inquiry, 14 days | Section 173(3) | ✓ Directory. No stated bar on later FIR registration; delay can be raised administratively. |
| Free copy of FIR, forthwith | Section 173(2) | ✓ Directory. Documented lapse; not a ground to quash the FIR. |
| Charge framing, 60 days | Sections 251, 263 | ✓ Directory. No automatic discharge; can support an expedition application. |
| Discharge application, 60 days | Section 250 | ✓ Directory. Late filing is generally condonable on facts; not an absolute bar. |
| Committal, 90 days (extendable 180) | Section 232 | ✓ Directory. Extension built into the section itself; overrun beyond 180 days lacks a stated automatic consequence. |
| Sessions judgment, 30 days (extendable 45) | Section 258(1) | ✓ Directory. No reported authority treats a late judgment as void; expedition is the available remedy. |
| General judgment, 45 days | Section 392(1) | ✓ Directory. Same position as above. |
| Mercy petition timelines | Section 472 | ✓ Directory as to the applicant's own filing windows in most reported practice, though the stakes in a death-sentence matter mean any lapse should be treated as urgent regardless of its formal classification. |

Two provisions, the 24-hour production rule and the 60/90-day custody clock, are the only ones on this list that convert a missed date into an automatic legal remedy without further argument. Everything else is a documented departure from what the statute requires, useful in a bail application, an expedition petition, or a disciplinary complaint against an officer, but not a self-executing consequence.

Building this table meant re-reading each section against the enacted text rather than trusting a remembered figure, since several of the errors surveyed above trace back to exactly that shortcut. A [research tool that surfaces the exact BNSS provision alongside how courts have actually applied it](https://niyam.ai) shortens that check without removing the need to read the section itself.

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## The custody-to-default-bail timeline

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    A[Arrest] --> B["Production before Magistrate<br/>within 24 hours<br/>s.58, s.187(1)"]
    B --> C["Magistrate authorises custody<br/>up to 15 days at a time<br/>s.187(2)"]
    C --> D{"Offence category?"}
    D -->|"Death / life / 10+ years"| E["Outer custody limit: 90 days<br/>s.187(3)(i)"]
    D -->|"Any other offence"| F["Outer custody limit: 60 days<br/>s.187(3)(ii)"]
    E --> G{"Chargesheet filed<br/>before deadline?"}
    F --> G
    G -->|Yes| H["Custody continues under<br/>ordinary bail rules"]
    G -->|No, and accused applies| I["Default bail accrues<br/>on furnishing bail"]
```

---

## Frequently asked questions

### What is the most common section-number error in BNSS timeline checklists?

Two recur most often. The 60/90-day chargesheet-adjacent custody limit is frequently cited to Section 193 BNSS; it is actually Section 187(3) BNSS, since Section 193 governs the police report and carries its own separate deadlines. The judgment-pronouncement figure is often quoted as "30 days extendable to 45" against Section 392, when the flat 45-day rule sits in Section 392(1) and the 30-day-extendable-to-45 figure belongs to Section 258(1), which applies specifically to Sessions Court trials.

### Is the 60/90-day chargesheet deadline the same as default bail?

They are linked but not identical. Section 187(3) BNSS caps how long a person can be held in custody before the chargesheet is filed at 60 or 90 days depending on the offence. If that cap is reached without a chargesheet, the accused becomes entitled to default bail, provided the accused applies for it and is prepared to furnish bail before the chargesheet is actually filed. There is no separate section that independently requires the chargesheet itself to be filed by that date; the consequence runs through the custody clock.

### Does missing the 14-day preliminary inquiry window bar the police from registering an FIR later?

No provision in Section 173(3) BNSS states that. The fourteen-day figure is the outer limit for the inquiry itself. Courts have observed the window is often exceeded in practice, but no reported authority treats an overrun as barring subsequent FIR registration. It remains useful as a documented delay in a complaint against the police for suppressing registration.

### What happens if a Sessions Court does not deliver judgment within the extended 45 days under Section 258?

No provision states that a judgment delivered after the deadline is void. The remedy available to an aggrieved party is to press for expedition, including by approaching the jurisdictional High Court, rather than to argue the eventual judgment is a nullity. Treat the deadline as a lever, not as automatic relief, and check the current status of any such order on [LiveLaw's BNSS coverage](https://www.livelaw.in/tags/bnss) before relying on it as settled.

### Is the mandatory forensic crime-scene visit under Section 176(3) actually in force everywhere right now?

Not necessarily. The section allows each State Government to notify the date from which the requirement takes effect in that state, within a window of up to five years from the BNSS coming into force, and separately allows a state without forensic facilities to rely on another state's facility until its own is built. Before arguing non-compliance, confirm the notified start date in the relevant state.

### What is the correct citation for mercy petition timelines under the BNSS?

Section 472 BNSS, not "Sections 472-473." All five figures, the 30-day initial filing window, the 60-day window to approach the President after a Governor's rejection, the 60-day window for co-convicts, the 60-day Central Government recommendation period, and the 48-hour communication requirement after the President's decision, sit within the seven subsections of Section 472.

### Do BNSS timelines apply to an offence committed before 1 July 2024?

No. The governing rule is the date of the offence, not the date of the FIR or the current date. An offence committed before 1 July 2024 continues under the CrPC's timelines, including the CrPC's own 60/90-day default bail provision under the old Section 167. Only offences committed on or after 1 July 2024 fall under the BNSS timelines set out in this checklist.

### Is there a fixed statutory deadline for filing a criminal appeal under the BNSS?

No. Appeal limitation periods come from the Limitation Act, 1963, a separate statute, not from the BNSS. This checklist deliberately leaves out specific appeal-period day-counts because that figure was outside what could be verified against a primary BNSS source; check the Limitation Act schedule for the relevant forum before relying on any number quoted elsewhere.

### What is the deadline for a court to confirm an order of seizure or attachment of property under the BNSS?

Thirty days from the date the order was made, under Section 117(2) BNSS. This is unrelated to the judgment-pronouncement deadlines and is frequently confused with them in secondary summaries because both involve a 30-day figure.

### How long does the BNSS give police to complete an investigation into a sexual offence?

Two months from the date the information was recorded, under Section 193(2) BNSS, for the specified sexual-offence provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the corresponding POCSO provisions. This is distinct from the separate two-month trial-completion clock under Section 346(1), which runs from the date the chargesheet is filed, not from the FIR date.

### What must happen within 24 hours after an arrest?

The arrested person must be produced before a Judicial Magistrate, or an officer in charge of a police station, within 24 hours of arrest, excluding the time necessary to travel from the place of arrest to the magistrate's court. This is grounded in Article 22(2) of the Constitution and restated in Sections 58 and 187(1) BNSS. It is treated as mandatory; a breach makes continued detention unlawful.

### Can an accused be tried in absentia under the BNSS, and is there a timeline for that?

Yes, for a person declared a proclaimed offender who has absconded to evade trial. The trial-in-absentia mechanism under the BNSS requires the court to wait a minimum period after charges are framed before proceeding without the accused. Because this checklist is organised around deadlines that could be verified against the enacted BNSS text with a matched day-count and section, and confirming the exact waiting period fell outside that verification in this piece, it is not restated here as a number; readers relying on it should check the specific section text directly rather than a secondary summary.

### Who is responsible for informing a family member when someone is arrested, and by when?

The police officer making the arrest, under Section 48 BNSS. The statute requires this "forthwith," without a fixed number of hours, and requires an entry in the police station register recording who was informed. The magistrate before whom the arrestee is first produced must specifically check this was done.

### Does a default bail application under Section 187(3) survive if the chargesheet is filed the day the application is heard?

This is a genuinely contested area in practice, and outcomes turn on whether the chargesheet was filed before the application was made and taken up, not merely before the case is decided. Because this is unsettled at the level of general principle rather than a fixed rule, treat the custody-clock deadline as something to act on the moment it is reached rather than something to rely on retrospectively.

### How does a lawyer keep track of all these BNSS deadlines across an active caseload?

Manually, the discipline is to calendar each stage's deadline the moment the triggering event occurs, arrest date for the custody clock, FIR date for the sexual-offence investigation clock, committal date for discharge and charge-framing windows, and to check the applicable section text directly rather than relying on a secondary summary, given how many of these figures are commonly misquoted. A [research workflow](https://niyam.ai) that keeps the BNSS text and its cross-references to reported orders in one place reduces the risk of citing the wrong section under time pressure, which is where most of the errors surveyed in this piece originated.

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## A working note on what is left out

This checklist is selective by design. It does not include every timeline in the BNSS, only those that could be checked against the enacted statute and, where possible, against reported orders citing the same section and figure. Timelines that could not be confirmed this way, including some frequently quoted online, have been left out rather than guessed. If a deadline you rely on in practice is missing here, that omission is deliberate rather than an oversight, and worth verifying independently before you rely on it. For the underlying question of which code applies to a given matter at all, see [the new criminal laws explained](/blog/new-criminal-laws-bns-bnss-bsa), and for how the BNSS interacts with default bail as a standalone topic, see [default bail under BNSS section 187](/blog/default-bail-bnss-section-187).