BACK TO BSA 2023
BSA 2023ACTIVE FRAMEWORK
Section 23
Confession to Police Officer
THE STATUTE
Original Text
No confession made to a police officer shall be proved as against a person accused of any offence.
Legal Commentary
BSA Section 23 is textually identical to IEA Section 25 — the absolute bar on police confessions is preserved without any modification. This was a politically sensitive decision: there were proposals to relax the bar for confessions made in the presence of a magistrate or on video, but the final BSA retains the absolute rule.
The Section 26 discovery exception (BSA's counterpart to IEA Section 27) is also preserved unchanged.
All case law under IEA Section 25 — including Deoman Upadhyaya (constitutionality), Dagdu (magistrate exception), and the NCB/customs officer jurisprudence — applies directly under BSA Section 23.
Questions & Answers
No — BSA Section 23 is identical to IEA Section 25. The absolute bar on police confessions is preserved. Despite proposals to introduce a supervised video confession exception, the BSA retained the complete exclusion. Confessions made to police officers remain inadmissible against the accused under the BSA.