Question

Under what section of the Evidence Act can information discovered via narco-analysis (if voluntary) be admitted?

Hint:

Remember: Narco → Statement inadmissible; Discovery admissible under **Section 27** only if test was voluntary.

Answer 1

Even when narco-analysis is conducted voluntarily, the statements made during the test themselves are not admissible because they are not made consciously and violate the rule against self-incrimination.
However, the Supreme Court in Selvi v. State (2010) held that: \[ \boxed{Only material facts discovered as a consequence of such a voluntary statement may be admitted under Section 27 of the Evidence Act.} \]
Why Section 27?
Because Section 27 allows:
“Discovery of a fact in consequence of information received from a person accused of any offence…”
Even if the statement itself is inadmissible, the **“discovery”** that follows is admissible, provided:

the test was conducted with informed consent,
the discovery is independently verifiable,
the information was not extracted involuntarily.
Thus: \[ \text{Narco statement} \; = inadmissible \] \[ \text{Discovery under Section 27} \; = admissible (if voluntary) \]

Answer 2

To place Section 27 correctly, start with how the Evidence Act treats confessions generally, then see why narco-analysis creates a special problem within that scheme.

The general rule on confessions.
Sections 24 to 26 of the Evidence Act make a confession made to a police officer, or made while in police custody, inadmissible unless it falls within a recognised exception. The idea is to prevent coerced or unreliable confessions from being used to convict someone.

The one exception that matters here: Section 27.
Section 27 carves out a narrow exception: where information given by an accused in custody leads to the discovery of a fact, so much of that information as distinctly relates to the fact discovered may be proved, regardless of whether it amounts to a confession. The exception exists because an independently verifiable discovery, like the recovery of a weapon or stolen property, is not simply the accused's word; it is corroborated by the object itself.

Why a narco-analysis statement cannot walk in through the front door.
A statement made while under the influence of a drug is not the product of a conscious, deliberate choice to speak. It fails the basic requirement that a statement be a genuine act of the person's own will, which is exactly why the Supreme Court in Selvi v. State of Karnataka (2010) held such statements to be inadmissible as direct evidence, voluntary test or not.

Why the discovery that follows can still come in through Section 27.
If information revealed during a voluntary narco-analysis test leads investigators to an object or fact that is then independently found and verified, that discovery is not resting on the reliability of the drugged statement itself; it is resting on the physical fact recovered. Selvi allows this narrow route, provided the test was truly voluntary, conducted with the safeguards the Court laid down, and the discovery is corroborated independently rather than taken on faith.

The statement stays out, but the corroborated discovery that flows from it can be led in evidence under the same logic Section 27 already uses for ordinary custodial disclosures.

\[ \boxed{\text{Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act: only the independently verified discovery is admissible, never the narco statement itself.}} \]