Punjab & Haryana High Court Upholds Murder Conviction Solely on Judicial Dying Declaration; Reiterates That a Voluntary and Reliable Dying Declaration Needs No Corroboration Even Without Eyewitnesses
Case Name: Mahender Singh v. State of Haryana
Date of Judgment: 06 July 2026
Citation: CRA-D-382-DB-2005
Bench: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Vinod S. Bhardwaj and Hon’ble Mrs. Justice Sukhvinder Kaur.
Held: The Punjab and Haryana High Court held that a conviction for murder can be sustained solely on the basis of a judicial dying declaration if it inspires confidence, is voluntary, truthful and recorded after the declarant is certified to be in a fit mental condition. The Court reiterated that Section 32 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 does not require the maker of a dying declaration to be under an expectation of death, and a reliable dying declaration does not require corroboration merely because there are no eyewitnesses or independent witnesses. Minor discrepancies in oral testimony regarding timelines or non-examination of neighbours and child witnesses do not dilute the evidentiary value of an otherwise trustworthy judicial dying declaration recorded by a Magistrate in accordance with law.
Summary: The appeal challenged the appellant’s conviction under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code for setting his wife on fire after pouring kerosene over her. The prosecution case rested primarily on the dying declaration recorded by a Judicial Magistrate after the attending doctor certified that the victim was mentally fit to make her statement. The appellant questioned the conviction by alleging inconsistencies in the timing of the dying declaration, incompleteness of the statement, absence of certification that it had been read over to the deceased, improbability of obtaining thumb impressions because of burn injuries, lack of proof of motive, non-examination of neighbours and the child of the deceased, and the absence of any expectation of death when the statement was recorded. Rejecting these submissions, the High Court found that the documentary record maintained contemporaneously by the doctor and the Judicial Magistrate established an uninterrupted sequence showing that the victim was medically fit before and after recording of the declaration. The Court held that minor inconsistencies in the Investigating Officer’s recollection of timings after several years could not override contemporaneous official records. It further observed that the medical evidence did not establish destruction of the deceased’s thumb impressions and that the Judicial Magistrate had specifically testified that the statement was read over to the deceased before she affixed her thumb impression. The Court also clarified that the apparent incompleteness in the translated dying declaration resulted from an incorrect translation, whereas the original vernacular clearly showed that the deceased had nothing further to state. Relying upon Section 32 of the Indian Evidence Act and the Supreme Court’s decision in Atbir v. Government of NCT of Delhi, the Court reiterated that a truthful and voluntary dying declaration is sufficient to sustain a conviction without independent corroboration. Since the deceased consistently implicated her husband before the Judicial Magistrate as well as her father, the forensic evidence corroborated the use of kerosene, and the appellant failed to establish any plea of alibi or rebut the prosecution case, the Court upheld the conviction.
Decision: The criminal appeal was dismissed. The Punjab and Haryana High Court affirmed the conviction and sentence of life imprisonment imposed upon the appellant under Section 302 IPC, holding that the judicial dying declaration, corroborated by medical and forensic evidence, was wholly reliable and sufficient to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt.