IMPORTANT POINT
A dying declaration, while admissible, requires corroboration and must be scrutinized carefully, particularly in cases involving severe criminal charges, to ensure that the prosecution has met its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

JUDGMENT :

Ashutosh Kumar, J.

1. We have heard Mr. N.K. Agrawal, learned Senior Advocate for the appellants and Mr. Satya Narayan Prasad, learned APP for the State.

2. The appellants, who are father-in-law and husband of the deceased respectively, have been convicted under Sections 302, 307, 323 and 498A/34 of the Indian Penal Code, vide judgment dated 25.05.2017 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Gaya, in Sessions Trial No. 514 of 2016, G.R. No. 1850 of 2015, arising out of Belaganj P.S. Case No. 60 of 2015. By order dated 29.05.2017, they have been sentenced to undergo R.I. for life, to pay a fine of Rs.30,000/- and in default of payment of fine, to further suffer imprisonment for two years for the offence under Section 302 IPC. For the offence under Section 307 of IPC, they have been sentence to undergo R.I. for ten years, to pay a fine of Rs.20,000/- and in default of payment of fine, to further suffer imprisonment for one year. For the charge under Section 323 of IPC, the appellants have been sentenced to undergo imprisonment for one year. For the offence under Section 498A of IPC, the appellants have further been sentenced to undergo R.I. for three years, to pay a fine of Rs.5,000/- and in default of payment of fine, to suffer imprisonment for six months.

3. All the sentences have been ordered to run concurrently.

4. The case is based on the so-called dying declaration of the deceased, who is said to have given her fardbeyan statement before the Officer In-Charge of Belaganj Police Station (P.W. 3) on 24.04.2015.

5. In the aforenoted fardbeyan statement, the victim had alleged that when she had sought permission from her mother-in-law (not put on trial) in the night of 23.04.2015 to go in the neighbourhood to attend a marriage, she was abused and her children were taken away from her. Later in the night at about 11 O' Clock, her husband/appellant Ranjan Paswan along with his parents came and doused her with petrol, which was taken out from the motorcycle and was set on fire. The fire was lighted by appellant no. 1.

6. Thereafter, leaving the deceased burning, the accused persons ran way, closing the door of the room behind them. On her shouts, many people of the neighbourhood came and opened the door. In order to give it a colour of accidental fire while cooking, the appellant no. 2, her husband tried to extinguish the fire by coming close to her body and in the process, he too was injured. There had been a past history of cruelty at the hands of the appellants and her mother-in-law. On this occasion she was very severely burnt.

7. On the basis of the afore-noted statement, which was recorded by P.W. 3, a case initially was registered vide Belaganj P.S. Case No. 60 of 2015, dated 24.04.2015 under Sections 341, 323, 307, 498A/34 of the IPC. Later, after the death of the deceased, Section 302 of IPC was added.

8. It appears that the mother-in-law of the deceased was not put on trial.

9. The Trial Court has examined only four witnesses including the Doctor, who conducted the postmortem over the dead body and the I.O. of this case, who had recorded the fardbeyan. The two other witnesses; one being the mother of the deceased and the other whose sister was married in the village of the appellants, have not supported the prosecution case and have been declared hostile.

10. It appears from the judgment that the Court below has fully relied upon the dying declaration of the deceased and the deposition of the I.O. to come to the conclusion that the appellants had killed the deceased.

11. We have noticed that on the fardbeyan which was recorded in the Emergency Ward of Belaganj Primary Health Centre, the victim had put her R.T.I. (Exhibit-1). She died after about 10 days of treatment in P.M.C.H. There is no signature of any person as a witness to the recording of the fardbeyan.

12. On the scrutiny of the deposition of P.W. 3 (the I.O.), we have found that he himself in Paragraph-2 of his cross-examination has said that when he had gone to se