For the purposes of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, an accomplice is a person:

An accomplice knowingly participates in the crime charged and is particeps criminis. A merely pretended confederate or trap witness without criminal intent is not an accomplice simply because he associates with the offender, and an informer’s label alone is insufficient. Basawan Singh distinguishes actual accomplices from witnesses interested in the success of a trap.

The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 does not define “accomplice”; the meaning comes from case law. Section 138 (formerly section 133 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872) makes an accomplice a competent witness against an accused person and now says that a conviction is not illegal if it proceeds upon the corroborated testimony of an accomplice, while illustration (b) to section 119 retains the caution that an accomplice is unworthy of credit unless corroborated in material particulars.