The Allahabad High Court has ruled that a conviction cannot be sustained based solely on a dying declaration unless it has been properly verified.
The bench, led by Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Dr. Gautam Chowdhary, highlighted this critical point while reviewing the appeal of Sintu and others from Bhadohi, convicted under IPC Sections 304 and 34 for dowry death.
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The court’s decision came after it found that the prosecution had failed to authenticate the dying declaration made by the deceased, Mira Devi, and did not produce the statement’s author as a witness during the trial.
The individual who recorded it translated the declaration, initially given in a local dialect.
The court stressed the necessity of calling this translator for cross-examination to ensure fairness in the proceedings.
Justice Mishra remarked that without the translator’s testimony, the defense lost the opportunity to challenge the declaration, compromising the integrity of the trial.
Mira Devi, married to Pintoo Gautam from Miyan Khanpur, suffered severe burn injuries on 18 October 2017, and passed away two days later.
Following the incident, Tehsildar Sunil Kumar recorded her dying statement based on the directives of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM).
He noted that the family members were present when the local revenue officer took the declaration and penned it.
While the trial court had relied heavily on Mira’s dying declaration and other supporting evidence, the High Court pointed out that her statement did not provide sufficient grounds for the conviction, particularly since her husband was in Delhi at the time of the incident and there were no eyewitnesses.
Moreover, the Tehsildar did not claim to have written the statement himself, and the prosecution did not question the revenue officer responsible for drafting the declaration.
The session judge in Bhadohi had sentenced the accused on 3 March 2020, based on the allegations filed by Mira’s brothers, Mahendra and Santosh, who claimed that her in-laws and brother-in-law had set her on fire following a dowry dispute.
In her dying declaration, Mira specifically accused her brother-in-law Akash and Sintu, son of Hinchalal, of igniting the fire around six in the evening.
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