CHAPTER II.––OF THE RELEVANCY OF FACTS · ADMISSIONS

Section 24: Confession caused by inducement, threat or promise, when irrelevant in criminal proceeding

The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (repealed)

Repealed by the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (47 of 2023) with effect from 1 July 2024.

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 or ¹promise 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.

Footnotes in the official text

1.For prohibition of such inducements, etc., see the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974), s. 316 (w.e.f. 1-4-1974).

Now in the BSA

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

24. Confession caused by inducement, threat or promise, when irrelevant in criminal proceeding.

BSA 22

Leading cases

Kanhaiyalal v. Union of India (2008)An 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

3 questions in 15 of our papers cite Section 24. Try these from the free papers:

1. 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?

Practise questions on Criminal Law