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REGINA v. CHARLES DIAS
NLR1V75
REGINA v. CHARLES DIAS.
Matara Criminal Sessions, No. 2.
Evidence-Dying declaration of person whose death was not the subject of inquiry
at the trial-Its admissibility under s. 460 of the Criminal Procedure Code and
under the common law.
A. statement made by a dying man before an Inquirer into Deaths is not
receivable in evidence under section 466 of the Criminal Procedure Code, not
having been made on oath or affirmation, nor taken down by a Police Magistrate.
Per Bonser, C.J.
The declaration of a dying person whose death did not form the subject of
inquiry at the trial is not admissible without proof that the declarant was in
actual danger of death and had given up all hope of recovery, and that the
deaths of the declarant and the person whose death was being investigated were
all due to one and the same transaction.
THE
accused in this case was convicted of murder at a Criminal Sessions of the
Supreme Court held at Matara in May last, and a question of law was reserved by
the presiding Commissioner of Assize and referred to the Supreme Court for
decision under section 424 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Two murders, consequent upon a land dispute, had been committed almost
simultaneously and in the same place at Dikwella on the 17th of December, 1894:
one by Dias, who killed Andris; the other by Gregoris, who killed Tilloris. A
desultory fighting was maintained, after the two murders had taken place,
between the trespassing party and some of the party of the deceased
persons, who were brothers. One Andrias, a brother of Dias, while fighting with
a brother of the two murdered men, received a gun-shot wound and died. It
appeared that some time before his death he made a dying declaration to the
effect that he killed both Dias and Gregoris,
In the case against Dias, the alleged dying declaration of Andrias was attempted
to be given in evidence. The Commissioner of Assize disallowed the question put
in that behalf to a witness for the defence, and the jury returned a verdict of
guilty against the accused. The learned Commissioner thereupon referred the
following case for the decision of two or more Judges of the Supreme Court:
Case Reserved.
I have the honour to refer to the Hon. the Supreme Court the following questions
which arose at the trial of the above-named accused on the 15th instant, for the
murder of one Don Andris Kumaratunga by stabbing.
The case for the prosecution on the evidence was that accused and twenty-five to
fifty oth
