Question

According to the provisions of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, an accused person intending to apply for 'Plea Bargaining' must do so within how many days following the formal framing of charges?

• A. 7 days
• B. 60 days
• C. 15 days
• D. 30 days

Hint:

Under the BNSS, the "30-day window" is critical for plea bargaining. If you miss this deadline after charges are framed, the opportunity to apply for this summary resolution is lost!

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

Plea bargaining exists so that an accused who is willing to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence does not have to sit through a full trial, and so that courts are not clogged with matters that could otherwise be resolved early. For that logic to work, the accused has to invoke the process soon after the charges are framed, not years into the trial once most of the court's resources have already been spent hearing evidence.

That is why the BNSS, 2023 fixes a specific outer limit from the date of framing of charges: the accused must apply within 30 days. This period gives enough time to take legal advice, understand the charges, and decide whether a plea bargain genuinely serves the accused's interest, while still keeping the option tied to the early stage of the case rather than letting it linger indefinitely.

A shorter period, such as seven or fifteen days, would not leave enough room for that consultation and negotiation to happen properly, and a longer period, such as sixty days, would undercut the whole purpose of an early cut-off by allowing the application well after the trial has moved on. Thirty days is the balance the statute actually strikes.

So the accused must apply for plea bargaining within 30 days of the charges being formally framed.

Answer 2

Another way to reach the same answer is to treat this as recall of a specific statutory number, and rule out the alternatives by testing whether they fit the known structure of plea bargaining provisions in Indian criminal procedure.

1. 7 days: This figure would leave almost no time for the accused to obtain legal advice or for the prosecution and any victim to be consulted before an application is filed, which is inconsistent with how the plea bargaining chapter is structured to allow for genuine negotiation.
2. 60 days: A two-month window does not appear in the BNSS provision on plea bargaining; if the legislature had wanted a longer runway, the whole design of tying the remedy to the framing of charges stage would be diluted, since the case could progress substantially before the application is even made.
3. 15 days: While this looks like a reasonable middle figure, it simply is not the number the statute uses. It is easy to guess as a plausible timeline, but confirming the actual text shows the legislature settled on a longer period than this.
4. 30 days: This matches the specific period written into the BNSS, carried forward from the equivalent provision in the earlier Code of Criminal Procedure that governed plea bargaining. The continuity between the old and new codes on this exact figure reinforces that 30 days is the correct period.

Cross-checking each figure against the design and continuity of the plea bargaining provisions leaves only one period that matches the statute.

Therefore, the correct answer is 30 days.