The Maharashtra Government has notified the Maharashtra (Community Service as Punishment for Certain Offences) Rules, 2025, laying down a framework for awarding community service as punishment for specified offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS).
The Rules identify six offences for which courts may impose community service:
● unlawful engagement in trade by a public servant (Section 202 BNS),
● non-appearance in response to a proclamation (Section 209 BNS),
● attempting suicide to compel or restrain the exercise of lawful authority (Section 226 BNS),
● first-time theft involving property valued below ₹5,000 where the property or its value has been restored (Proviso to Section 303(2) BNS),
● misconduct in public by a drunken person (Section 355 BNS), and defamation (Section 356(2) BNS).
Under the Rules, courts must specify the nature of the community service, the place where it is to be performed, the supervising authority, and its duration. Community service may be imposed for one to thirty-one days or forty to two hundred forty hours, subject to a maximum of eight hours in a day.
Schedule I lists the permissible forms of community service, including cleaning and maintenance of government hospitals, schools, public buildings and parks, assisting in hospital operations, traffic and crowd regulation, library and clerical work, tree plantation, sanitation work with municipal authorities, and services at old-age homes, museums, zoos and legal aid clinics. The Schedule also identifies the authorising and monitoring authorities responsible for supervising such work.
The Rules further prescribe a mechanism for reporting non-compliance. Monitoring authorities are required to submit a Non-Compliance Report to the court in cases where an offender fails to perform the assigned community service, enabling the court to take appropriate action in accordance with law.
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