Deciding Authority: The Supreme Court of India
Name of the Judges: R.P. Sethi & K.G. Balakrishnan
Date of Judgement: 06/03/2002
Facts:
The prosecution case is that on 28th June, 1986, deceased Sunder Bai went to the house of appellant Shambhu requesting him to repay the sum of Rs.1,000/- entrusted by her with the appellant. The further case of the prosecution is that the appellant committed rape on Sunder Bai and thereafter, the appellant’s wife, Sadhna Bai poured kerosene oil on the body of Sunder Bai and the appellant set fire to her. PW-2, Amritlal, having reached Prianko colony on a bicycle, heard the sound of “bachao, bachao” (help, help) and went near the house of appellant-Shambhu. He saw the deceased Sunder Bai set on fire by appellant-Shambhu. Hearing the sounds, many other people collected there and some of them took Sunder Bai to hospital. In the meantime, the husband of the deceased Sunder Bai also reached the place of incident. PW-2, Amritlal, went to the Police Station and gave Ex. P-1 report. PW-10, Mohan Singh, S.H.O. Police Station Annapurna, visited the place of incident in the night of 26th June itself. He also visited the M.Y. Hospital where the deceased was admitted with burn injuries. PW-10 sent a requisition to the Executive Magistrate, PW-9, for recording dying declaration of the deceased. PW-9, Executive Magistrate, reached the hospital and recorded the dying declaration of deceased Sunder Bai. Subsequently, Sunder Bai died while undergoing treatment in the hospital and her body was subjected to postmortem examination. Ten witnesses were examined on the side of the prosecution and the main items of evidence relied on by the prosecution were the evidence of PW-2 and the dying declaration allegedly made by deceased Sunder Bai, which was recorded by PW-9, the Executive Magistrate. The learned Sessions Judge acquitted the appellant for the reasons that the First Information Report was recorded belatedly and there were a series of discrepancies in Ex. P-1 F.I. Statement and that the dying declaration recorded by PW-9 was not reliable as there was no satisfactory evidence to show that Sunder Bai was in a fit state to give the dying declaration. Learned Sessions Judge also disbelieved PW-9 on the ground that he was not in a position to state the percentage of the burn injuries on the body of the deceased Sunder Bai; he had not brought the memorandum received from the police station; and that he did not verify whether the doctor had given sedatives to the deceased. PW-9 was also disbelieved on the ground that he deposed that he reached the hospital in a scooter whereas the Police Inspector had deposed otherwise. The High Court, in appeal, reversed the finding of the Sessions Judge and held that the prosecution had succeeded in proving that appellant-Shambhu had caused the death of deceased Sunder Bai. The High Court held that the dying declaration was reliable and that there was no reason to disbelieve the evidence of PW-9. The finding of the High Court is challenged before this Court.
Judgement:
After the perusing the cases of Surjan & Ors. vs. State of Rajasthan AIR 1956 SC 425 and Harbans Singh & Anr. vs. State of Punjab AIR 1962 SC 439 the apex Court denotes that the High Court must not interfere into the acquittal order of lower Court except there must be compelling reason to believe that the lower is clearly unreasonable in its reasoning regarding the acquittal. Then, to convict the guilty person it becomes necessary for the High Court to interfere into that acquittal order. The Supreme Court also pronounced that dying declaration given by the deceased Sundar Bai was recorded in a proper question-answer format by the Magistrate in front of Doctor, though this declaration was disbelieved by the Session Judge on a irrelevant grounds. The counsel for the appellant cited the case of Lallubhai Devchand Shah and Ors. vs. State of Gujarat (1971) 3 SCC 767 in which it was held that the dying declaration should not have been accepted without there being further corroboration of material particulars. In the instant case, there has been material corroboration, in the sense that deceased Sunder Bai was found with burn injuries near the house of the appellant. PW-2 saw the deceased near the house of the appellant and it was from that place that the deceased was removed to the hospital. PW-1, husband of the deceased Sunder Bai, also deposed that on hearing about the incident, he rushed to the place of occurrence and saw the deceased with burn injuries. The High Court considered all this evidence and came to the conclusion that the appellant had committed the offence of murder.
Decision:
The appeal is dismissed.
Sudipta Bhowmick, 4th Year, KIIT School of Law.
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