MADURAI: Taking into account the inconsistency in five different dying declarations given by a woman, Madras high court acquitted a man who was accused of murdering his wife by setting her on fire in Kanyakumari in 2011.
The prosecution case was that accused Shakul Hameed and his wife Fathima had a quarrel on July 25, 2011 when he poured kerosene on her and set her afire causing severe injuries leading to her death in hospital on November 13. The couple had three children.
Thuckalay police registered a case against Hameed and in 2018, the Kanyakumari fast track mahila court convicted and sentenced him to undergo life imprisonment for offence under Section 302 (murder) of IPC. Challenging his conviction, he had filed the criminal appeal before HC Madurai bench.
A division bench of Justices V Bharathidasan and J Nisha Banu observed that there are five dying declarations in the case. In the first one given to a private hospital doctor, Fathima said her husband poured kerosene on her and set her afire. In her second one given to a doctor at a government hospital where she was referred to she stated that she sustained injuries as a kerosene can fell on her.
The same day she was shifted to a hospital at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, where a third dying declaration was given to the judicial magistrate. She had then stated that she became unconscious as her husband had assaulted her over a quarrel. When she regained consciousness, she noticed that her body was on fire.
Immediately, her husband had poured water on her and neighbours taken her to the hospital. Though she stated that her husband was alone in the house, she said that she was not aware as to who poured the kerosene.
In the fourth dying declaration given to the police, she said her husband set her on fire while her neighbours doused it and took her to hospital. In the fifth declaration given to police while at the government hospital, she had stated that while she was preparing hot water, a kerosene can fell down and caught fire on her dress.
“It is the settled law that a dying declaration recorded by a competent judicial magistrate would stand on much higher footing than a declaration recorded by any other officer. The reason being, the magistrate has no axe to grind against the person named in the dying declaration,” observed the judges.
They further said that the presence of her minor daughter at the time of occurrence was doubtful as she had gone to the school and then to the tuition centre. If the child was at the house at the time of occurrence, there is no chance for her to go to school after the incident.
The judges observed that it would be unsafe to convict the appellant due to the inconsistency in the dying declarations and doubtful testimony of the minor child.
Hence, the judges set aside the conviction and sentence imposed by the trial court and acquitted the appellant of all charges.
