Confession — Meaning, Forms, Relevancy and Admissibility; Inducement, Threat or Promise (ss. 22–23) — BSA (Law of Evidence) Notes

Confession — Meaning, Forms, Relevancy and Admissibility; Inducement, Threat or Promise (ss. 22–23)

A confession is the most powerful evidence in a criminal trial — and the most dangerous. A confession beaten out of a suspect in a lock-up looks exactly like a true one once it is written down on paper; the page cannot show the fist that produced it. That single danger explains everything the Adhiniyam does with confessions: it does not welcome them, it fences them with wall after wall, and it throws out even a true confession if the way it was obtained cannot be trusted.

Start with the word itself, because the Act never defines it. A confession is a statement by an accused person which either admits in terms the offence, or admits substantially all the facts that make up the offence. That definition comes from the courts, not the statute — most famously from Pakala Narayana Swami vs Emperor (1939). A statement that admits only some incriminating fact (“I was near the scene”, “the knife is mine”) is not a confession; it is at most an admission.

Keep three relationships straight from the start.

A confession is a species of admission. It is an admission (Unit 1, s. 15) made in a criminal case that points to the maker’s own guilt. So every confession is an admission, but most admissions stop short of confessing the crime.
Confession is criminal only, and by the accused only. An admission can be civil or criminal and can be made by several classes of person (ss. 16–18); a confession can be made only by the accused, only in a criminal matter.
A voluntary confession is strong; an involuntary one is worthless. A free and voluntary confession can, by itself, sustain a conviction of its maker. But the moment it is tainted by force or temptation, the law shuts it out — however true it may be — because an unfree confession is unreliable.

A. The forms (kinds) of confession

Learn the two axes on which confessions are classified.

Judicial vs extra-judicial. A judicial confession is one made before a Magistrate or in court, in the course of a proceeding (recorded under BNSS s. 183, the old CrPC s. 164). An extra-judicial confession is one made anywhere else — to a friend, a relative, a village panchayat — and it is weaker, because there is no official safeguard around it (see Topic 4).
Voluntary vs involuntary. A voluntary confession is made of the maker’s own free will. An involuntary confession is one caused by inducement, threat, coercion or promise (s. 22), or one hit by the police bars (s. 23) — and the law treats it as irrelevant.

B. Relevancy and admissibility — the three walls

The Adhiniyam builds three walls against confessions. You must be able to name all three; the examiner’s “circumstances in which a confession is irrelevant” is exactly this list.

Wall 1 — s. 22 [IEA s. 24]: inducement, threat, coercion or promise. A confession is irrelevant if it appears to the court to have been caused by any inducement, threat, coercion or promise which (i) has reference to the charge, (ii) proceeds from a person in authority, and (iii) is enough to give the accused reasonable grounds for supposing he would gain an advantage or avoid an evil of a temporal (worldly) nature in the proceedings. All three conditions must be present.
Wall 2 — s. 23(1) [IEA s. 25]: any confession to a police officer. No confession made to a police officer can be proved against the accused — forced or not. This is an absolute bar (detailed in Topic 2).
Wall 3 — s. 23(2) [IEA s. 26]: confession in police custody. No confession made by a person while in police custody can be proved against him, unless it is made in the immediate presence of a Magistrate (also Topic 2, with the discovery proviso).

Section 22 itself carries two important relaxations you must not omit.

The impression must have worn off. If the confession is made after the inducement, threat or promise has, in the court’s opinion, been fully removed, it becomes relevant again — the taint is not permanent.
Three things do NOT taint it. A confession is not shut out merely because it was made (i) under a promise of secrecy, (ii) in consequence of a deception practised to obtain it, (iii) when the accused was drunk, or because it was made in answer to questions he need not have answered, or because he was not warned. These go to weight, not admissibility.

C. Who is a “person in authority”?

This is the pivot of s. 22, and the examiner’s favourite trap. A person in authority is someone who has authority over the accused or over the prosecution — a police officer, a Magistrate, a jailor, an employer, or anyone concerned in the charge. It is not a friend, a fellow-prisoner, or a private person with no such power. So an inducement or a promise from a friend does not attract s. 22 at all (this is the “I swear by God I will tell no one” problem — see Topic 4).

🧩 WORKED EXAMPLE — is the confession shut out?

Facts. A is arrested for theft. The investigating officer tells him, “Confess and I will make sure you are let off lightly.” A confesses.

Rule. Under s. 22 a confession is irrelevant if caused by an inducement/promise that (i) refers to the charge, (ii) proceeds from a person in authority, and (iii) offers a temporal advantage.

Apply. The promise refers to the charge (the theft), the investigating officer is plainly a person in authority, and “let off lightly” is a worldly advantage in the very proceedings. All three conditions are met.

Conclusion. The confession is irrelevant and cannot be proved against A — and quite apart from s. 22, a confession to a police officer is separately barred by s. 23(1).

Variant. If the same words had come from A’s neighbour, s. 22 would not apply — a neighbour is not a person in authority — and the confession (if not made to police or in custody) could be proved, subject to the usual caution for extra-judicial confessions.

Section 22, BSA 2023: “A confession made by an accused person is irrelevant in a criminal proceeding, if the making of the confession appears to the Court to have been caused by any inducement, threat, coercion or promise having reference to the charge against the accused person, proceeding from a person in authority and sufficient, in the opinion of the Court, to give the accused person grounds which would appear to him reasonable for supposing that by making it he would gain any advantage or avoid any evil of a temporal nature in reference to the proceedings against him.”

In Simple Terms: If a confession was squeezed out of the accused by a threat, a bribe-like promise or pressure from someone in a position of power over him, the court will not use it — because a confession given to escape a worldly harm or to win a worldly favour cannot be trusted to be true.

flowchart TD
    ROOT["A confession is offered"]:::root
    ROOT --> Q1{"Caused by inducement/threat/<br/>coercion/promise from a<br/>person in authority? (s. 22)"}
    Q1 -->|"Yes"| OUT["IRRELEVANT<br/>(unless impression fully removed)"]:::diamond
    Q1 -->|"No"| Q2{"Made to a police officer? (s. 23(1))"}
    Q2 -->|"Yes"| OUT2["INADMISSIBLE — absolute bar"]:::diamond
    Q2 -->|"No"| Q3{"Made in police custody? (s. 23(2))"}
    Q3 -->|"Yes, and NOT before a Magistrate"| OUT3["INADMISSIBLE<br/>(except discovery proviso)"]:::diamond
    Q3 -->|"No"| IN["Voluntary confession — may be proved"]:::leaf
    classDef root fill:#FFF8DC,stroke:#000,stroke-width:1px,color:#000;
    classDef leaf fill:#E6F3FF,stroke:#1E3A8A,color:#000;
    classDef diamond fill:#FDECEA,stroke:#B22222,color:#000;
    linkStyle default stroke:#888,stroke-width:1px;

Case Laws

Pakala Narayana Swami vs Emperor (1939) — a statement is a confession only if it admits the offence or substantially all the facts constituting it; admitting an incriminating fact alone is not a confession.
Palvinder Kaur vs State of Punjab (1952) — a statement partly inculpatory and partly exculpatory is not a confession; the exculpatory part cannot be dropped to convert it into one.
Pyare Lal Bhargava vs State of Rajasthan (1963) — a retracted confession may still be acted on if the court is satisfied it was voluntary and true; retraction alone does not destroy it.
State of Rajasthan vs Ajit Singh (2008) — reaffirmed that a confession must be voluntary; an inducement, threat or promise from a person in authority renders it inadmissible.

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