In an important ruling on evidentiary value of the dying declaration, the Supreme Court has held that the last minute statement of the murder victim is a solid ground for registering an FIR against the accused person named by the deceased and even sufficient to convict the assailant if all the witnesses have turned hostile in the court of law.
The top court clarified the position of law on acceptance of “dying declaration” as independent evidence while upholding the life sentence to a member of a gang who had killed a Ghaziabad lawyer in “cold blood” 31 years ago after all the three eye-witnesses who saw the lawyer being gunned down after a long chase refused to recognise any of them in the court.
A three-judge bench of Justices H.S. Bedi, P. Sathasivam and C.K. Prasad ruled that in a murder case, dying declaration of the victims could be the sole evidence to convict an accused if there is no other evidence available provided the FIR is lodged forthwith on the basis of the victim’s statement clearly identifying the assailant.
Advocate Mohammed Ashfaq was shot dead after a long chase by four “goons” — Mukhtar, Abrar, Mateen and Usman — around 9 pm in a street of Ghazipur, near Delhi on April 3, 1979 due to hostilities arising out of pending cases. The lawyer, who received a single shot wound gave three statements — first forming the basis for registering FIR, second recorded by a police inspector and third by an executive magistrate — before he succumbed to his injuries in a hospital next day. “It must be borne in mind that all three dying declarations are unanimous as all the accused find mention therein,” the top court said while upholding the life sentence to Abrar, who had fired at the lawyer from a close range. However, the top court gave benefit of doubt to the other three accused as no other shot was fired even though they chased Ashfaq in the same manner as Abrar did.