A confession is only useful evidence if it is truly voluntary. Where an accused person confesses because they were induced, threatened, coerced, or promised something by a person in authority, the confession cannot be trusted to reflect the truth — the incentive to say what the authority figure wants overrides the incentive to speak the facts. Section 22 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA) states that principle, and in doing so folds in the two related provisions of the 1872 Act as its provisos.
22. Confession caused by inducement, threat, coercion or promise, when irrelevant in criminal proceeding. 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.
Two changes the BSA has made
Section 22 corresponds to Sections 24, 28, and 29 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (IEA). The BPRD BSA-to-IEA correspondence table records two related changes: first, the word "coercion" has been added to the list of vitiating factors alongside inducement, threat, and promise; and second, Sections 28 and 29 IEA have been folded in as the first and second provisos to Section 22, with their headings dropped.
| Feature | Sections 24, 28 and 29, IEA | Section 22, BSA |
|---|---|---|
| Vitiating factors listed in the main rule | Inducement, threat, promise | Inducement, threat, coercion, promise |
| Confession made after impression removed | Section 28 IEA (stand-alone section) | First proviso to Section 22 |
| Otherwise-relevant confession under promise of secrecy, deception, drunkenness, etc. | Section 29 IEA (stand-alone section) | Second proviso to Section 22 |
Why "coercion" was worth adding
The IEA's Section 24 spoke of "inducement, threat or promise" — a formulation that had, in practice, been interpreted broadly enough to cover coercion, but had left room for argument that only threats short of coercion were caught. The BSA settles the point. Coercion — a term with its own settled legal content in the Indian Contract Act, 1872 and elsewhere — is now expressly named as a vitiating factor. A confession extracted through coercion by a person in authority is now unambiguously irrelevant. The addition removes a technical argument without altering the underlying policy.
The five cumulative conditions for irrelevance
All five must be met before the confession is treated as irrelevant. The court's satisfaction is required on each — and the fifth condition in particular is what filters out trivial or fanciful assertions of inducement.
The first proviso: removal of the impression
The first proviso saves a confession that was initially tainted but later became untainted. If the impression caused by the inducement, threat, coercion, or promise has, in the court's opinion, been fully removed by the time the confession was made, the confession is relevant. The court will typically look for a clean break — separation from the person in authority, passage of time, warnings that the earlier promise or threat has no effect, and other circumstances tending to show that the accused was no longer acting under the improper pressure.
The second proviso: factors that do not by themselves vitiate
The second proviso specifies factors that, by themselves, do not make an otherwise-relevant confession irrelevant: a promise of secrecy, deception practised on the accused to obtain the confession, drunkenness, answering questions the accused need not have answered, and the absence of a warning that the confession may be given in evidence. The point is not that these factors are wholesome — some are decidedly not — but that they do not automatically trigger the exclusionary rule. Where they combine with, or shade into, coercion, threat, inducement, or promise, the main section can still bite.
Placement in the confessions block
Section 22 opens the confessions block (Sections 22 to 24). A confession must first survive Section 22's voluntariness test. It must then survive Section 23's police-officer and police-custody bars. And where a co-accused is on trial, Section 24 governs whether the confession may be considered against the co-accused. Only then does Section 25's overarching calibration apply — the confession, though relevant, is not conclusive proof.
Key Takeaways
- "Coercion" added: the list of vitiating factors is now inducement, threat, coercion, and promise.
- IEA 28 and 29 folded in: the removal-of-impression rule (IEA 28) is the first proviso; the otherwise-relevant confession rule (IEA 29) is the second proviso.
- Five cumulative conditions for irrelevance: accused person; caused by one of the four factors; referring to the charge; from a person in authority; sufficient to give reasonable grounds for supposing temporal advantage or avoidance of evil.
- First proviso: confession is relevant if the impression has been fully removed by the time of confession.
- Second proviso: promise of secrecy, deception, drunkenness, unnecessary questions, and absence of warning do not by themselves vitiate an otherwise-relevant confession.
Conclusion
Section 22 places voluntariness at the heart of the law of confessions. The BSA's addition of "coercion" to the list of vitiating factors closes a small but real doctrinal opening; folding Sections 28 and 29 IEA in as provisos consolidates the whole regime into one section that a court can read and apply in a single view. The result is a cleaner, more explicit, and unambiguously modern statement of a rule that has done central work in Indian criminal evidence law since the 1872 Act — with the substantive policy fully preserved.