Admissible and Non-Admissible Confessions under Section 24 Evidence Act

I was trying a CUET PG Law question last year, 'X confesses to Y that he committed a theft. X later retracts this confession. Whether this confession is admissible as evidence against Y, who is now in police custody?'

Ab kya karein? The correct approach here is to think if the confession is admissible under Section 24 Evidence Act. According to this section, a confession made under police influence is non-admissible. Here, X made a confession to his friend Y in police custody, which can be considered as 'police influence' under Section 24.

So, the right approach is to first check if the confession is made under 'police influence', and if yes, then it's not admissible. In this case, the answer is no, X's confession is non-admissible against Y.