Setting the law straight in a recent judgment, a Bench of Justices A.K.

Sikri and Amitava Roy held

that “percentage of burns alone would not determine the probability or otherwise of making a
dying declaration. Physical state or injuries on the declarant do not by themselves become
determinative of mental fitness of the declarant to make the statement”.

Holding that a dying declaration is an independent piece of evidence like any other, “neither
extra strong or weak,” Justice Sikri, who wrote the judgment for the Bench, observed that “there
is no hard and fast rule of universal application as to whether percentage of burns suffered is a
determinative factor to affect credibility of dying declaration”.

The Supreme Court was upholding the sentence of life imprisonment awarded to the husband
and three in-laws on the basis of the last words of a woman who suffered 100 per cent burns
after she was set on fire by them at Jhajjar district in Haryana in September 1999. Prosecution
evidence placed on record in court showed that the mother of two was tortured for dowry
throughout the 20 years of her marriage. But the trial court had acquitted the convicts after the
victim's own brother turned hostile and said that she committed suicide.

The High Court, however, overturned their acquittal after giving full credence to the dying
declaration of the victim, recorded in the presence of a local magistrate, indicting the four
convicts. The Supreme Court confirmed the HC’s judgment.

A full bench of the Bombay High Court has held that a dying declaration cannot be rejected
merely because it was not read over to the declarant. The three-judge bench of Justice RK
Deshpande, Justice SB Shukre and Justice MG Giratkar of the Nagpur b...

Read more at: http://www.livelaw.in/dying-declaration-cant-rejected-merely-wasnt-read-

declarant-bombay-hc-fb-read-judgment/