Section – 25 of Evidence Act

Explanation of Section – 25 of Evidence Act

• No confession made to a police officer shall be proved as against a person accused of any offence

Scope:

• Section 25 lays down that a confession made by a person to the police officer is inadmissible and cannot be proved.
• The basic object of this section 25 and Section 26 is to prevent practices of torture by the police officers for the purpose of extracting confessions from the accused persons.
• Although both sections seek to achieve same purpose they operate in different fields. It is well known that the police officer to secure confession uses short cut methods even by putting the arrested person into third degree so that the arrested person confesses.
• “The principle upon which the rejection of confession made by an accused to a police-officer or while in the custody of such officer (Section 26) is founded that a confession thus made or obtained is untrustworthy.”

• Section 25 was enacted to put a stop to the extortion of confession. It was, therefore, enacted to sub-serve a high purpose

• Alike Section 25 the Section 162 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 provides that no statement made to a police officer investigating a case shall, if taken down in writing, be signed by the person making it, nor shall such writing be used as evidence. Statement made to police officer during investigation does not become admissible merely because he is dead.

 Rule of Confession in other Statute

• This confessional statement made before custom officers is admissible as such officers are not police officers for the purpose of Section 25 of this Act.
• Any statement made before the authorities of the Narcotics Department under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act 1985, is admission in evidence and is not hit either by Section 25 of the Evidence Act or by Section 161, Cr. PC.
• Under section 15 of the TADA Act, 1987 the confessional statement was regarded as substantive piece of evidence and could be used against the accused under police custody

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