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Jayamma & Anr. v. State of Karnataka

Criminal Appeal · 2021 INSC 287Decided 7 May 2021
Criminal Appeal No. 758 of 2010
Justice Surya Kant · Justice Aniruddha Bose

Background

Following a family dispute, a woman named Jayamma died after being doused in kerosene and set on fire, allegedly by appellant Jayamma (a different person of the same name) and her co-accused. The trial court acquitted the accused, finding serious inconsistencies in the evidence, but the Karnataka High Court reversed this and convicted them of murder, relying heavily on the victim's dying declaration.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found serious, unexplained contradictions between the treating doctor's and the recording police officer's accounts of the victim's injuries and her capacity to speak at the time the dying declaration was recorded, casting real doubt on its genuineness. It held the High Court had dealt with the acquittal appeal too summarily, without properly engaging with the eyewitness evidence of the victim's son and daughter-in-law. Finding the prosecution's alleged motive itself unproven, the Court endorsed the trial court's view, allowed both appeals, set aside the convictions, and set the appellants free.

Lesson Learnt

A dying declaration, though legally admissible, must be corroborated and internally consistent before a conviction can rest on it: courts cannot overlook contradictions between the medical and investigating witnesses simply because the declaration appears to implicate the accused.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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