New Delhi, July 14
The Supreme Court Thursday said the whole idea of accepting a statement in the name of a dying declaration is that a man will not meet his maker with a lie in his mouth.
The top court said it is believed that when a man is at the point of death and when every expectation of this world is gone, it hushes away every motive of the lie.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and JB Pardiwala refused to interfere with the High Court verdict upholding the trial court decision of convicting two accused of murder and awarding them a life sentence.
The bench said, “In the overall view of the matter, we are convinced that there is no good reason to interfere in the present appeal. We do not find any fundamental or basic infirmity in the impugned judgment of the High Court going to the root of the matter calling for any interference by this Court”.
It upheld the conviction and sentence of one Kamal Khudal after relying on the oral dying declaration given by the deceased and medical evidence which supported the statement of the deceased.
“The whole idea of accepting a statement in the name of dying declaration comes from a maxim ‘Nemo moriturus praesumitur mentire’ which means that a man will not meet his maker with a lie in his mouth. It is believed that when a man is at the point of death and when every expectation of this world is gone, it hushes away every motive of lie,” Justice Pardiwala said in the verdict penned down by him on behalf of the bench.
The top court said the law regarding the nature, scope, and value as a piece of evidence of oral and written dying declarations is now fairly well settled by various judicial decisions of this Court.
