PART II · CHAPTER II RELEVANCY OF FACTS · Admissions

Section 22: Confession caused by inducement, threat, coercion or promise, when irrelevant in criminal proceeding

The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 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:

Provided that if the confession is made after the impression caused by any such inducement, threat, coercion or promise has, in the opinion of the Court, been fully removed, it is relevant:

Provided further that if such a confession is otherwise relevant, it does not become irrelevant merely because it was made under a promise of secrecy, or in consequence of a deception practised on the accused person for the purpose of obtaining it, or when he was drunk, or because it was made in answer to questions which he need not have answered, whatever may have been the form of those questions, or because he was not warned that he was not bound to make such confession, and that evidence of it might be given against him.

Corresponding Evidence Act provision

As given in the correspondence table of the National Crime Records Bureau (Ministry of Home Affairs). Read both texts before relying on it. NCRB table

22	24. Confession caused by inducement, threat or promise, when irrelevant in criminal proceeding.
22	28. Confession made after removal of impression caused by inducement, threat or promise, relevant.
22	29. Confession otherwise relevant not to become irrelevant because of promise of secrecy, etc.

Leading cases

Kanhaiyalal v. Union of India (2008)Decided on Evidence Act section 24An officer acting under Section 67 read with Section 42 of the NDPS Act is not a police officer, so a voluntary statement made to him can be used as a confession against its maker and alone sustain a conviction.

Questions on this section

11 questions in 31 of our papers cite Section 22. Try these from the free papers:

1. Under Section 22 of the BSA, a confession caused by an inducement, threat, coercion or promise is irrelevant in a criminal proceeding if the inducement, threat, coercion or promise:
2. Section 24 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 made a confession irrelevant if it was caused by an inducement, threat or promise. Section 22 of the BSA, which replaces it, adds which of the following to that list of causes that make a confession irrelevant?
3. A police officer threatens X, an accused, that his family will be harmed unless he confesses. X does not confess then. Weeks later, after X has been remanded to judicial custody and the Court finds that the impression caused by the threat had been fully removed by then, X voluntarily confesses before a Magistrate. The confession is:

Practise questions on Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam