If there are more than one dying declarations in a case, the courts should satisfy themselves as to which one reflects the truth, the Supreme Court has said.
"In cases where there is more than one dying declaration, it is the duty of the court to consider each one of them in their correct perspective and satisfy itself that which one of them reflects the true state of affairs," a bench of justices Abhay Manohar Sapre and Ashok Bhushan said while putting the curtains down in the 27-year-old case.
The observation came in a case in which prosecution had relied on the dying declaration of the victim who in her first two statements had accused her lover of setting her ablaze after she asked him to marry her. In her third statement, she had resiled.
The apex court refused to interfere with the findings of the trial court and the Bombay High Court, which had convicted and sentenced accused Raju Davade by relying on two of the three dying declarations given by the victim who was 18 years of age in 1989.
The apex court refused to interfere with the decisions of the Bombay High Court and the trial court, convicting the man and dismissed his appeal.
"We are not inclined to take any different view to one which has been taken by both Sessions Judge and the High Court rejecting the case of the defence that it was a case of accidental death caused by falling of the chimney," the bench said.
Relying on the initial dying declarations of the girl which were recorded on the day of the incident on March 4, 1989, the apex court said, "oral statement of victim was recorded by the police which was followed by recording of dying declaration in which same statement was made by victim implicating accused (Raju) of the crime."
"In the facts and circumstances of the case the conviction has rightly been recorded relying on the (first) dying declaration (the oral statement) of the deceased recorded," it added.
The court also said it has been held in the past that each dying declaration "has to be considered independently on its own merit" and "one cannot be rejected because of the contents of the other".
According to the prosecution, on March 4, 1989, the girl was alone in her house in Mehkar village in Maharashtra and when her family returned, they found her in flames nearby.
She was taken to the rural hospital where she recorded her oral statement in which she alleged that she was having a love affair with the accused who had set her on fire after she requested him to marry her.
The girl, who suffered 72 per cent burns, died five days later and a case under section 302 (murder) was lodged against the accused lover. A sessions court had convicted him and sent him to life imprisonment, which was upheld by the High Court in 2007.
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