In the age of “sting operations” and advanced technology, the Supreme Court in an important judgment has adopted a cautious approach on the admissibility of “extra judicial” dying declaration of a murder victim to prevent its misuse and put the onus entirely on prosecution to prove its authenticity independently. “The prosecution must
stand or fall on its own legs and it cannot derive any strength from the weaknesses of the defence,” to prove the authenticity of any dying declaration made by murder victims to any person other than the authorities recognised under the law.
A bench of Justices Deepak Verma and K.S. Radhakrishnan applying this principle, acquitted four accused from Bhiwani in Haryana in a murder case, convicted by the trial judge on the basis of a dying declaration of victim Vijay and the Punjab and Haryana high court confirming life sentence to them. They were convicted on the basis of a statement purportedly recorded by Vijay in Hindi on “match box wrapper”, which police sub-inspector Raj Kumar had reportedly recovered from the victim’s possession.
Since Kumar had died during the trial proceedings, the top court raised doubt on the authenticity of the statement.
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Stay on medical PG admission
New Delhi, June 21: Taking cognisance of a bunch of petitions by serving MBBS doctors from Karnataka challenging the state high court order quashing the “rural weightage” marks for post-graduate admissions, the Supreme Court on Monday stayed the admission process till next hearing on June 28, reports our correspondent.
“Admission list will not be finalised till next date,” a vacation bench of Justices R.M. Lodha and A.K. Patnaik said while issuing notice to the Karnataka government. The court also stayed the contempt proceedings in the high court against some parties relating to the admission proc-ess while asking the private institutions to submit their counter affidavits within three days. The petitioner doctors highlighted the issues of contract and regular appointments, availability of “rural weightage” marks for PG admissions to those MBBS and BDS doctors, who had served in rural areas for a specified period. Their counsel stated that the HC in its order of October 26, 2009 while framing the guidelines for admission for academic session 2010-11, had quashed rural weightage benefits.