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Section 66: Rape Causing Death or Persistent Vegetative State

Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita • Chapter V: Of Offences Against Women & Children • Official Statutory Text & Legal Guide

Chapter V: Of Offences Against Women & Children
Court of Session
Non-Bailable
Cognizable
Formerly Sec 376A IPC
Section 65 All 358 Sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Section 67

Legal Commentary & Landmark Judgments: Section 66

Section 66 prescribes punishment for causing death or resulting in persistent vegetative state of a rape victim.

  • Core Legal Standard: Section 66 (formerly Section 376A IPC) provides that whoever commits rape.
  • Penal Consequences & Liability: In the course of such commission inflicts an injury which causes the death of the woman or causes the woman to be in a persistent vegetative state, shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for not less than twenty years to life imprisonment for natural life, or with death.

Section 66 enforces non-derogable capital and life-imprisonment sentencing standards, reflecting absolute statutory intolerance toward catastrophic sexual violence.

Key Landmark Precedents:
  • Mukesh v. State for NCT of Delhi (2017) 6 SCC 1: Affirmed the constitutionality and application of Section 376A IPC / Section 66 BNS in imposing capital punishment for brutal sexual assaults resulting in death.
Legal Commentary:

Enacted in the aftermath of the 2012 Delhi gang rape, Section 66 bridges sexual violence and homicide, punishing the infliction of catastrophic, fatal bodily trauma with life imprisonment for natural life or capital punishment.

Section 65 All 358 Sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Section 67