Ethical Considerations in the Application of Narco-Analysis to Suspects in India: A Critical Legal Analysis

Abstract

Abstract

Narco-analysis occupies an uneasy position between investigative innovation and constitutional restraint. This article examines whether its use upon suspects in India can be reconciled with the privilege against self-incrimination, personal liberty, privacy, fair-trial guarantees, and medical ethics. It adopts a doctrinal methodology, analysing the Constitution of India, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, leading judicial decisions, and international human-rights and professional standards. The article also evaluates the technique’s scientific premise and the evidentiary distinction between a subject’s responses and independently proved discoveries arising from those responses. It argues that chemical disinhibition does not produce truth: sedation may reduce resistance while simultaneously increasing suggestibility, confusion, compliance, and confabulation. The Supreme Court’s decisions in Selvi v. State of Karnataka and Amlesh Kumar v. State of Bihar correctly prohibit involuntary testing, exclude the test report as direct evidence, and deny any indefeasible right to demand the procedure. Yet the category of “voluntary” testing remains ethically and constitutionally unstable because custody distorts choice and sedation weakens the continuing capacity to withdraw. The article concludes that investigators should ordinarily prefer reliable, non-invasive methods. If voluntary narco-analysis is retained at all, it must be confined to an exceptional, court-supervised defence request, supported by independent legal advice, medical screening, recorded and continuing consent, strict confidentiality, and corroboration of every derivative fact. These safeguards are necessary but do not transform an unreliable technique into proof.