LAW FOR ALL

Supreme Court, Criminal Appellate jurisdiction of--Certif- icate of fitness, if can be granted by High Court on a question of fact Dying declaration evidiantry value of-If must be corroborated in order to sustain conviction-Consti- tution of India, Art. 134(1)(c)- Indian Evidence Act (.1 of 1872), s. 32(1).= HEADNOTE: The Supreme Court does not ordinarily function as a Court of criminal appeal, and it is not competent for a High Court under Art. 134(1)(c) of the Constitution to grant a certifi- cate of fitness for appeal to this Court on a ground which is essentially one of fact. Haripada Dey v. The -State of West Bengal" - (1956) S.C.R. 639, followed. There is no absolute rule of law, not even a rule of pru- dence that has- ripened -into a: rule of law- that a dying declaration in order-that it may sustain an order of convic- tion must be corroborated by, other independent evidence. The observations made by this Court in Madhoprasad v. The State of Madhya Pradesh are in the nature of obiter dicta and do not lay down the law. Madhoprasad v. The State of Madhya Pradesh, A.I.R. (1953) S.C. 420, considered. In re Guruswami Tevar, I.L.R. (1940) Mad. I58, approved. Case-law reviewed.The provision of s. 32(I) of the Indian Evidence Act " which makes the statement in a dying declaration as to the cause of death and the circumstances that brought it about rele- vant, is an exception to the general rule of exclusion of hearsay evidence and evidence untested by cross-examination. The special sanctity which the Legislature attaches to such a declaration must be respected unless such declaration can be shown not to have been made in expectation of death or to be otherwise unreliable and any evidence adduced for this purpose can only detract from its value but not affect its admissibility. Although a dying declaration has to be very closely scruti-nised, and tested as any other piece of evidence, once the Court comes to the conclusion, in any particular case, that it is true, no question of corroboration arises. A dying declaration cannot be placed in the same category as the evidence of an accomplice or a confession. Consequently, in a case where the trial judge as also the High Court founded their orders of conviction of an accused person under S. 302 Of the Indian Penal Code mainly on three dying declarations made by the murdered person in quick succession one after the other, and the High Court, relying on a decision of this Court, sought for corroboration of such dying declarations in the fact that the accused person had absconded and was arrested in suspicious circumstances, but was in doubt as to the sufficiency of such evidence of corroboration and granted the certificate of fitness under= Held, that the certificate granted by the High Court was incompetent and as the case disclosed no grounds on which this Court could possibly grant special leave to appeal under Art. 136 of the Constitution, the appeal must be dismissed.