JUDGMENT :

KURIAN, J.:

1. Nemo moriturus praesumitur mentire literally means no one at the point of death is presumed to lie. Nobody normally may lie and die for fear of meeting his maker.

2. Acceptability and reliability of statement made by a person who is about to die, which statement, in common parlance, is known as dying declaration, has been the subject matter of several reported decisions of this Court and, therefore, it is not necessary to add one more to the same. However, for the purpose of understanding the first principles, we shall refer to a Constitution Bench decision in Laxman v. State of Maharashtra, (2002) 6 SCC 710, wherein at paragraph-3, it is held as follows:

“3. The juristic theory regarding acceptability of a dying declaration is that such declaration is made in extremity, when the party is at the point of death and when every hope of this world is gone, when every motive to falsehood is silenced, and the man is induced by the most powerful consideration to speak only the truth. Notwithstanding the same, great caution must be exercised in considering the weight to be given to this species of evidence on account of the existence of many circumstances which ma