The Penal Code of Bangladesh is the official criminal codeofBangladesh. It is based on the Indian Penal Code enacted in 1860 by the Governor General-in-Council. It is similar to the penal codes of countries formerly part of the British Empire in South and Southeast Asia, including Singapore, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
The Parliament of Bangladesh has amended the penal code on several occasions, with the most recent being in 2004.
The code is a legacy of the Victorian era. While its objective is to provide a general penal code for Bangladesh,[1] other criminal law statutes have also been enacted by the Bangladeshi parliament.
The code was drafted on the recommendations of first law commission of British India. It was presented to the Governor of Bengal in 1837. While based on the law of Victorian England, it derived elements from the Napoleonic Code and Louisiana Civil Code of 1825. It was adopted on 6 October 1860.[2] When East Bengal became part of Pakistan after the Partition of British India, the code was known as the Pakistan Penal Code. The code was re-enacted in Bangladesh after the country's independence in 1971.
Sedition and seditious libel has been criticized as an outdated law. While the United Kingdom has phased out penalties for seditious libel, its continued presence in the Bangladeshi penal code has been used by the government to target to leading journalists and politicians.[3]
Capital punishment remains legal in Bangladesh, although other common law countries like the United Kingdom and Canada have abolished the death penalty.[5]
Bangladesh
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