201. Causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offender

Whoever, knowing or having reason to believe that an offence has been committed, causes any evidence of the commission of that offence to disappear with the intention of screening the offender from legal punishment, or with that intention gives any information in respect of the offence which he knows or believes to be false, shall -

if the offence which he knows or believes to have been committed is punishable with death, be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years and fine;

if the offence is punishable with imprisonment not exceeding 10 years or over, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years and fine; and

if the offence is punishable with imprisonment for any term not exceeding 10 years, shall be punished with imprisonment of the description provided for the offence, for a term not exceeding one-fourth part of the longest term of the imprisonment provided for the offence, fine or both.