Man’s conviction for murder upheld on wife’s dying statement
July 16th, 2009 - 9:41 pm ICT by IANSNew Delhi, July 16 (IANS) The Delhi High Court Thursday upheld the conviction and life imprisonment of a man who killed his wife 20 years ago, and ruled that the dying declaration of the victim is “sufficient” for the conviction.
A division bench of Justices B.D. Ahmed and P.K. Bhasin while upholding Rajinder Kumar’s conviction said: “Dying declaration by victim is authentic and its truthfulness cannot be doubted, and the statement alone is sufficient for the purposes of basing a conviction.”
Kumar and his father Sat Pal, who was a co-accused in the case but died during the pendency of the appeal, allegedly poured kerosene on Sunita and set her on fire in their west Delhi home June 11, 1989.
Though there was no allegation of demand for dowry or torture, there was evidence that Sunita had been harassed by Kumar and his father, the court said.
A sub-division magistrate (SDM) had recorded Sunita’s statement at Delhi’s Safdarjang Hospital before she succumbed to her injuries.
The SDM, a prosecution witness, told the court that he recorded the statement without any addition or subtraction and that at the time of recording of the statement, nobody else was present except Sunita and him.
The court declined Kumar’s plea that Sunita was not in a fit state of mind for giving statement and said, “The doctor on examination had found Sunita to be fit for a statement and it is at that point of time that Sunita gave her history of how she got burnt.”
A trial court in 1994 had sentenced Kumar to imprisonment for life.
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Tags: ahmed, allegation, bhasin, conviction, delhi high court, division bench, dowry, dying declaration, kerosene, life imprisonment, magistrate, New Delhi, pendency, prosecution witness, sdm, subtraction, sunita, trial court, truthfulness, west delhi