Under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, an act of a child is not an offence if the child is under the age of :

Under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, which replaced the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the provisions regarding the criminal responsibility of children remain largely unchanged from the previous legal framework. According to Section 20 of the BNS, "Nothing is an offence which is done by a child under seven years of age." This principle, known as doli incapax, provides absolute immunity from criminal liability because a child of that age is presumed incapable of forming criminal intent (mens rea).

• Section 21 of the BNS provides qualified immunity for children above seven and under twelve years of age, depending on their maturity of understanding.
• While Section 2(3) of the BNS defines a "child" as any person below eighteen years for general purposes, the specific threshold for absolute non-offence is seven years.