Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has ruled that a victim’s statements recorded in hospital bed-head tickets—when made before doctors, nurses and support staff who found the patient conscious—can be treated as reliable dying declarations even without a separate written certification of her mental fitness.
A division bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha and Justice Ajay Kumar Gupta upheld the conviction of a woman for burning her daughter-in-law to death, noting that the victim made two successive and consistent statements at two different hospitals identifying her mother-in-law as the assailant.
The victim had been married within four months when, according to trial evidence, her in-laws demanded Rs 1 lakh as additional dowry. She had repeatedly informed her father that she was facing torture over the demand. On July 5, 2012, she was found with severe burns inside her in-laws’ home. Her father and two uncles rushed her to Haripal Rural Hospital, where she told the attending doctor — in the presence of three staff nurses and two Group-D attendants — that her mother-in-law poured kerosene on her and set her on fire. The statement was recorded in the hospital bed-head ticket and signed by the medical and support staff.
She was then referred to Chinsurah Sadar Hospital. There, before another medical officer and a staff nurse, she again stated that she had been set on fire by her mother-in-law. The medical officer recorded that she suffered 96% third-degree burns but was conscious and oriented while making the statement. She died on July 7, 2012.
The court found that the doctors and nurses who heard both statements were competent to assess whether the patient was delirious, and none of the hospital records indicated any confusion or inability to speak. Their testimony in court confirmed that the victim was conscious at the time of both declarations.
The bench held that the statements were voluntary, consistent, contemporaneous and witnessed by qualified medical personnel, satisfying the legal standards for accepting a dying declaration. Noting that the accused did not deny the occurrence during her examination, the High Court upheld the conviction, dismissed the appeal and directed that the trial records be sent back for necessary action.