JUDGMENT

Banerjee, J.-Admissibility of a dying declaration has had judicial scrutiny for over five decades. Whereas the earlier view in Ramnath s case (Ramnath Madhoprasad and others v. State of Madhya Pradesh, AIR 1953 SC 420) to the effect that it is not safe to convict an accused person merely on the evidence furnished by a dying declaration without further corroboration, a larger Bench judgment of this Court in Tarachand (Tarachand Damu Sutar v. The State of Maharashtra: AIR 1962 SC 130) categorically observed that conviction based on dying declaration, against the correctness of which no cogent reasons have been given or suggested, is sustainable in law.

2. This Court, a decade later in Munnu Raja and another v. The State of Madhya Pradesh (AIR 1976 SC 2199) stated the law to the effect that though the dying declaration must be approached with caution for the reason that the maker of the statement cannot be subjected to cross-examination, there is neither a rule of law nor a rule of prudence which has hardened into a rule of law that a dying declaration cannot be acted upon unless it is corroborated. This Court went up to observe that the court must not look out for corroborat