DADU GENU MORE Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Advocate appointed for the Appellant - original accused and learned APP for the State.

(2.) The incident is of 29.1.1987. The accused is the husband of deceased Ranjana who has been convicted for burning his wife Ranjana. The accused and Ranjana were married 8-9 years before the incident. They had three children. They were living in a zopadpatti in a hut made of a bamboo and other combustible material. It is the case of the prosecution that on the date of the incident, the accuse came home in a drunken condition. He wanted to take dinner. Wife was feeding the child. She therefore asked him to wait. He got irritated. He brought kerosene lamp, poured kerosene on the saree towards legs of Ranjana. She questioned him and asked him why he is making a Tamasha. Thereupon he took the burning glass lamp and set her ablaze. This is the story of the prosecution. Two dying declarations were recorded, one by the Police Officer and the other by Special Executive Magistrate in the hospital. The court relied upon both the dying declarations and the evidence of father of Ranjana who was sleeping at the time in front of the house of Ranjana and the court convicted the appellant - accused, as stated above, and, hence this Appeal.

(3.) Mainly two contentions were raised by the advocate for the appellant - accused. Firstly, that both the dying declarations could not be relied upon because the prosecution did not bring on record anything to show that any doctor examined Ranjana before the SEM and the police officer, who recorded her statement. We were taken through the record. P.W. 8 Dr. Nitin Jagannath Mokal, the doctor who examined Ranjana after her burns and who recorded case history of accidental burns, details not known. He however does not state anything that either the police officer or the SEM approached before recording the dying declaration or that he had any opportunity or occasion to examine Ranjana with reference to her state, mental as well as physical to give a dying declaration.