Ram, an accused of an offence of murder, stated before a police officer that 'The knife by which I have killed Sohan has been hidden by me in the field, which I can show.' On this information the police officer discovers the said knife from the field, on which human blood is detected. Is the whole statement given by the accused admissible in evidence? If not, what part or parts are admissible in evidence? Give reasons clearly

Ram's Statement Before the Police Officer: A Surgical Analysis

The Statement in Question

Let us begin by reproducing the statement clearly and keeping it in sharp focus throughout this discussion. Ram, who is accused of murder, states before a police officer: "The knife by which I have killed Sohan has been hidden by me in the field, which I can show." Pursuant to this information, the police officer proceeds to the field, discovers the knife, and on examination, human blood is found on it.

The question before us — is the whole statement admissible? — takes us directly to the intersection of Section 25, Section 26, and Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, and their corresponding provisions under Section 23 (sub-sections 1, 2, and the Proviso) of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023.

The Governing Statutory Framework

Section 25 of the IEA (= Section 23(1) of BSA, 2023) declares without qualification: "No confession made to a police officer shall be proved as against a person accused of any offence." This is an absolute rule, and the statement before us is clearly a confession — it directly and expressly admits the commission of the offence. Ram says, in the clearest possible words, "I have killed Sohan." There is no ambiguity, no exculpatory element, no mere admission of an incriminating fact. It is an unambiguous confession of guilt.

Section 26 of the IEA (= Section 23(2) of BSA, 2023) extends the prohibition: no confession made by a person while in police custody shall be proved against him, unless made in the immediate presence of a Magistrate. Since there is no suggestion that a Magistrate was present, this provision operates as an additional bar against any part of the statement being used in its entirety.

However, the law does not stop there. The Proviso to Section 23 of the BSA, 2023 (= Section 27 of the IEA) carves out a critical exception: "When any fact is deposed to as discovered in consequence of information received from a person accused of any offence, in the custody of a police officer, so much of such information, whether it amounts to a confession or not, as relates distinctly to the fact thereby discovered, may be proved."

Dissecting the Statement: Part I and Part II

Before answering the question, it is necessary to surgically dissect Ram's statement into its constituent parts. The statement, properly analysed, contains two distinct and separable elements:

Part I — The Confessional Part: "The knife by which I have killed Sohan."

Part II — The Discovery Part: "has been hidden by me in the field, which I can show."

This analysis is not semantic hair-splitting. It is the very methodology demanded by the Privy Council in one of the most celebrated decisions in the law of evidence — Pulukuri Kottaya v. Emperor (AIR 1947 PC 67) — which remains, as the Supreme Court described it in State of Rajasthan v. Bhup Ram (1997 1 Supreme Today 405), "a locus classicus" whose "forensic worth has not eroded even after half a century."

In Pulukuri Kottaya, the accused had stated: "I stabbed Sivayya with a spear. I hid the spear in a yard in my village. I will show you the place." The Madras High Court, relying on the Full Bench decision in Re Athappa Goundan (ILR 1937 Mad. 695), had held the entire statement admissible on the theory that the confessional part and the discovery part were inseparably linked. The Privy Council overruled this view entirely. Sir John Beaumont, speaking for the Privy Council, stated with memorable clarity: "It is fallacious to treat the fact discovered within the section as equivalent to the object produced. The fact discovered embraces the place from which the object is produced and the knowledge of the accused as to this, and the information given must relate distinctly to this fact."

Applying this test to Ram's statement:

Part II — the information about the knife being hidden in the field — "relates distinctly to the fact discovered" — namely, the discovery of the knife from its place of concealment in the field. It is the cause; the discovery of the knife in the field is the effect. This part has a direct and proximate relationship with the fact discovered, and the Doctrine of Confirmation operates: the police officer goes to the field, finds the knife exactly where Ram said it would be, and this subsequent discovery confirms that the information was truthful and not a product of coercion.

Part I — the words "the knife by which I have killed Sohan" — is pure confession. It directly admits the commission of the offence. It "connects the fact discovered with the offence charged" and thereby falls squarely under the ban of Sections 25 and 26. As Sir Beaumont warned, if the confessional part were also admitted because the knife has been recovered, "little substance would remain in the ban imposed by the two preceding sections...the persuasive powers of the police will prove equal to the occasion and in practice the ban will lose its effect."

The Answer: What is Admissible and What is Not

The whole statement is NOT admissible. The legal position, applying the principles of Pulukuri Kottaya as affirmed by the Supreme Court in Aghnoo Nagesia v. State of Bihar (AIR 1966 SC 119) and Mohd. Inayatullah v. State of Maharashtra (AIR 1976 SC 483), is as follows:

The Supreme Court clarified the scope in Mohd. Inayatullah v. State of Maharashtra (AIR 1976 SC 483): "The phrase 'distinctly relates to the fact thereby discovered' is the linchpin of the provision...the expression 'fact discovered' includes not only the physical object produced but also the place from which it is produced and the knowledge of the accused as to this." Consequently, the admissible part of Ram's statement includes: (a) his knowledge of the knife's concealment; (b) the specific location — the field; and (c) the act of leading the police there. What is inadmissible is any part of the statement that states or implies how the knife came to be associated with the crime.

The Supreme Court reiterated this in Mustkeem alias Sirajudeen v. State of Rajasthan (2011 11 SCC 724): "What is important is discovery of the material object at the disclosure of the accused but such disclosure alone would not automatically lead to the conclusion that the offence was also committed by the accused. Thereafter, burden lies on the prosecution to establish a close link between discovery of the material objects and its use in the commission of the offence."

The Evidential Value of What is Admissible

What does the prosecution have, then, after excising the inadmissible portion? It has three things:

First, the admissible part of Ram's statement — that he knew the knife was hidden in the field — which, as the Supreme Court stated in State of Bombay v. Kathi Kalu Oghad (AIR 1961 SC 1808), goes to prove his knowledge of the whereabouts of the weapon, a circumstance of significant evidential importance.

Second, the knife itself, recovered from the field — an independent piece of physical evidence.

Third, the detection of human blood on the knife — which is a material fact that the prosecution must independently link to the victim Sohan, through forensic and medical evidence.

The prosecution therefore must, through independent evidence — eyewitness testimony, medical evidence, forensic matching of blood, post-mortem reports — establish the link between the discovered knife and the offence. The discovery under Section 27 is, as the Supreme Court observed in Vijay Thakur v. State of Himachal Pradesh (2014), "only circumstantial evidence and cannot be relied on in the absence of corroboration."

The Doctrine of Confirmation: Why Part II is Trustworthy

One may ask: if the statement was made to the police and the law distrusts police confessions, why is even Part II admissible? The answer lies in the Doctrine of Confirmation by Subsequent Events, which is the philosophical bedrock of Section 27. The Supreme Court explained it with admirable clarity in State of Maharashtra v. Damu Gopinath Shinde (AIR 2000 SC 1691): "If any fact is discovered in a search made on the strength of any information obtained from a prisoner, such a discovery is a guarantee that the information supplied by the prisoner is true."

When Ram says the knife is in the field and the knife is indeed found there, the very fact of its discovery in the exact location reveals that the information was not fabricated under police pressure. The real world has confirmed the truth of the statement — and a truth confirmed by subsequent events does not need the same degree of protection from the suspicion of coercion that attaches to an unconfirmed confession. This is why, in the words of UP v. Deoman Upadhyay (AIR 1960 SC 1125), the discovery part of the statement is "declared provable in so far as it distinctly relates to the fact thereby discovered."

The Statement Summarised as a Principle

To summarise the entire legal position in a formulation that a lawyer can carry into court:

Ram's statement before the police officer is a composite statement containing a confessional part and a discovery part. The confessional part — "the knife by which I have killed Sohan" — is inadmissible under Section 25 of the IEA (Section 23(1) of the BSA, 2023) as it is a confession made to a police officer. The discovery part — "has been hidden by me in the field, which I can show" — is admissible under Section 27 of the IEA (Proviso to Section 23 of the BSA, 2023) as it distinctly relates to the fact discovered, namely, the knife found in the field. The discovered knife, along with the detection of human blood upon it, is admissible as independent physical evidence, and the prosecution must establish the link between this knife and the murder of Sohan through other corroborating evidence.