Conspiracies are, by their nature, hard to prove. Conspirators do not sign contracts, keep minutes, or announce their intentions in public. Their acts and statements — small on their own — take on evidentiary significance only when a court can view them collectively. Section 8 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA) provides the specific relevance mechanism that lets courts do exactly that: anything said, done, or written by any conspirator in reference to the common intention becomes a relevant fact against every other conspirator.
8. Things said or done by conspirator in reference to common design. Where there is reasonable ground to believe that two or more persons have conspired together to commit an offence or an actionable wrong, anything said, done or written by any one of such persons in reference to their common intention, after the time when such intention was first entertained by any one of them, is a relevant fact as against each of the persons believed to be so conspiring, as well for the purpose of proving the existence of the conspiracy as for the purpose of showing that any such person was a party to it.
Illustration.
Reasonable ground exists for believing that A has joined in a conspiracy to wage war against the State. The facts that B procured arms in Europe for the purpose of the conspiracy, C collected money in Kolkata for a like object, D persuaded persons to join the conspiracy in Mumbai, E published writings advocating the object in view at Agra, and F transmitted from Delhi to G at Singapore the money which C had collected at Kolkata, and the contents of a letter written by H giving an account of the conspiracy, are each relevant, both to prove the existence of the conspiracy, and to prove A's complicity in it, although he may have been ignorant of all of them, and although the persons by whom they were done were strangers to him, and although they may have taken place before he joined the conspiracy or after he left it.
The BSA's edit: illustration language updated
Section 8 corresponds to Section 10 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (IEA). The BPRD BSA-to-IEA correspondence table records that the substantive rule is unchanged, and that the modifications are confined to the illustration: "Government of India" is replaced by "State"; and the city names are modernised — Calcutta becomes Kolkata, Bombay becomes Mumbai, and Kabul becomes Singapore.
| Feature | Section 10, IEA | Section 8, BSA |
|---|---|---|
| Substantive rule | Conspirator's acts/statements relevant against all | Identical |
| Illustration references | "Government of India"; Calcutta; Bombay; Kabul | "State"; Kolkata; Mumbai; Singapore |
The three cumulative conditions
Two purposes for which the evidence is relevant
Section 8's admissibility rule works both ways. It admits conspirator evidence:
- To prove the existence of the conspiracy itself. The court can look at the collection of acts and statements to determine whether a conspiracy existed at all.
- To show that any particular person was a party to it. Once the conspiracy is established, the same collective evidence can be used to fix any individual's complicity.
The dual purpose is important because in a conspiracy case both questions are usually alive simultaneously.
Reading the modernised illustration
The illustration is one of the most famous in Indian evidence law and remains an unusually good teaching example. A is reasonably believed to have joined a conspiracy to wage war against the State. Seven acts are named as relevant against A: B's procurement of arms in Europe; C's collection of money in Kolkata; D's persuasion of new members in Mumbai; E's publications in Agra; F's transmission of money from Delhi to G at Singapore; and the contents of H's letter about the conspiracy. Each of the seven is admissible against A both to prove that the conspiracy existed and to prove that A was a party. The BSA has updated the geography (Kolkata for Calcutta, Mumbai for Bombay, Singapore for Kabul — the latter shifting to a contemporary "abroad" reference) and the target ("State" for "Government of India") — but the analytical picture is exactly what the 1872 illustration set out.
The temporal limit
The section's temporal limit — "after the time when such intention was first entertained by any one of them" — carries a specific meaning. Evidence of statements or acts predating the formation of the common intention is not admissible under this section (though it may be relevant under other provisions, such as Section 6 for motive). And where a person joins the conspiracy after it has been formed, acts and statements of the conspirators before that person joined are still admissible against them under Section 8 — as long as they were after the common intention was first entertained. The section deliberately does not require the specific accused to have been a member at the time of each act; only that the common intention had been formed by someone.
The threshold of "reasonable ground"
Section 8's opening threshold — reasonable ground to believe the conspiracy exists — is important because the section admits what would otherwise be inadmissible hearsay against those not present. Without a threshold, the section could be used to admit any co-accused's statements against any other co-accused without an evidentiary foundation. The reasonable-ground requirement forces the party invoking the section to lay some foundation for the conspiracy's existence first — usually through direct or circumstantial evidence, before the conspirator-statements admissibility opens.
Placement in Chapter II
| Section | Neighbouring role |
|---|---|
| 6 (motive/conduct) | Motive, preparation, and conduct — often relevant in conspiracy cases at the pre-formation stage |
| 7 (explanatory) | Facts explanatory of relevant facts, including conspirator acts |
| 8 | Conspirator acts/statements in reference to common intention |
| 24 (joint-trial confession) | Confession of jointly-tried accused, with the calibration that it is not substantive evidence — Kashmira Singh (1952) SC |
Key Takeaways
- Conspiracy-specific admissibility: conspirator's acts and statements in reference to the common intention are relevant against all conspirators, both on existence and on complicity.
- Three cumulative conditions: reasonable ground for conspiracy; statement/act in reference to common intention; after the common intention was first entertained.
- Not limited by knowledge or presence: A's ignorance of a co-conspirator's specific acts or statements does not affect admissibility.
- Modernised illustration: "Government of India"→"State"; Calcutta/Bombay/Kabul → Kolkata/Mumbai/Singapore.
- Substantive rule unchanged from Section 10 IEA.
Conclusion
Section 8 is one of the most doctrinally important provisions in Chapter II. It provides the specific evidentiary architecture on which conspiracy prosecutions and civil-conspiracy-based tort claims run, admitting collective conduct as relevant against every conspirator on the twin questions of existence and complicity. The BSA has left the substantive rule intact and updated the illustration's geography and political references — a modernisation that keeps the classic teaching example current without changing anything about how the section actually operates.