admissibility.

ADMISSIBILITY AND IRRELEVANCY OF CONFESSIONS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS Gautam Gupta, Assistant Professor of Law, Dharmashastra National Law University, Jabalpur (India) Download Manuscript doi.org/10.70183/lijdlr.2026.v04.271 The law of confessions has a very prominent existence in the jurisprudence of evidence at the intersection of effective criminal prosecution and constitutional protection against self-incrimination. This paper makes an attempt for a critical examination of framework governing the relevancy, admissibility and irrelevancy of confessions under the laws governing the same. The term ‘confession’ is not defined in the statutory framework but is generally understood as an admission or acknowledgment of guilt by the accused. This paper attempts to unpack, through judicial pronouncements, the conceptual distinction concerning what qualifies as a confession  and whether it has been made voluntarily or involuntarily.The paper further discusses the evidentiary value accorded to a confession made by a co-accused jointly tried for the same offence, examining Section 24 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, which corresponds to Section 30 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, and the settled position that such confession is not substantive evidence and cannot, without independent corroboration, form the sole basis of conviction.  The paper further makes an attempt to discuss when the confessional statement becomes irrelevant when it is caused by inducement threat or promise being made from a person in authority and such confessional statements becomes irrelevant as they may not reflect the accused free will. On the other hand, a confessional statement made to a police officer cannot be proved against the accused, although it may be logically relevant, because it is legally inadmissible. The paper further makes an attempt to analsye the “doctrine of confirmation by subsequent facts” and to what extent it can be made admissible under the law of evidence with the other statements being recorded by the police under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023.The researcher through this paper attempts to find out the impact of and the effect of involuntary statements made by an accused. The paper is confined only to find out the admissibility and irrelevancy of confessions under the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023.