Courts should see which dying declaration reflects truth: SC

“In cases, where there are 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,” said a Bench of Justices Abhay Manohar Sapre and Ashok Bhushan, while putting the curtains down in a 27-year-old case. 

The observation came in a case, in which the 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 had 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.