SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 23 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 16 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

We doubt SSC's key on this question.

Section 23 bars a confession made to a police officer whether or not it was voluntary, and the voluntariness test (inducement, threat, coercion or promise) sits in Section 22, so a strict reading holds R false and points to option (c); this card follows SSC's key, which marks (a).

The answer below is still the option SSC's key marks, and we solve to that option.

Read the below statements marked as Assertion (A) and Reason (R). Mark the correct options: Assertion (A): A confession made to a police officer is inadmissible in court. Reason (R): Section 23 of Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam retains the principle of voluntariness in confession.

(a)Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A.
(b)Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A.
(c)A is true, R is false.
(d)A is false, R is true.

Answer

Why

Correct — A. A is true. Section 23(1) of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 says: "No confession made to a police officer shall be proved as against a person accused of any offence."

SSC's key reads R as true and as the reason for A. The bar, carried over from the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, rests on distrust of confessions made to the police.

The key treats that distrust as the voluntariness principle → option (a). The note on the key records the doubt.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A. — SSC's key links R to A: it reads the police-confession bar as resting on doubts about voluntariness, so R is taken as the reason A holds, not a separate truth beside it.
(c)
A is true, R is false. — SSC's key accepts R, reading Section 23's bar on police confessions as carrying the old Act's concern with voluntariness into the new law. The note on the key records why a strict reading differs.
(d)
A is false, R is true. — A is true. Section 23 bars proving a confession made to a police officer against the accused, so the statement that such a confession is inadmissible cannot be false.

Concept

The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 replaced the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 from 1 July 2024 and kept the old confession rules under new section numbers.

Section 22 makes a confession irrelevant in a criminal proceeding if it was caused by inducement, threat, coercion or promise. Section 23 bars a confession made to a police officer from being proved against the accused.

The explicit voluntariness test (inducement, threat, coercion or promise) sits in Section 22. Section 23 is the specific bar on police confessions, and the key reads R as naming the principle behind that bar.

Reading the same bar in the Evidence Act, the Supreme Court held in Aghnoo Nagesia v. State of Bihar (1965) that a confession made to a police officer under any circumstances is not admissible against the accused.

Key facts

The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 replaced the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and came into force on 1 July 2024.
BSA Section 23: no confession made to a police officer shall be proved as against a person accused of any offence.
BSA Section 22: a confession caused by inducement, threat, coercion or promise is irrelevant in a criminal proceeding.
Article 20(3): no person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.

Study next

Confessions recorded by a Magistrate under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha SanhitaDiscovery of a fact from information given in police custodyThe three criminal laws that came into force on 1 July 2024

Common traps

Choosing (b) because R reads like a general principle. The key reads that principle as the reason the police-confession bar exists.
Confusing a confession to the police, which cannot be proved, with one recorded by a Magistrate, which can.

Here the Adhiniyam is tested through a section number inside an Assertion–Reason pair. It is asked by the law it replaced at 22 Sep 2025, 09:00, GA Q.6, and for its handling of digital evidence at 12 Sep 2025, 09:00, GA Q.17.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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