KENJUM RIBA Vs. STATE OF ARUNACHAL PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants, 11 in number were that the discredited evidence of PW-5 cannot be used for brushing aside the unimpeached and unshaken evidence of PW-2, particularly, when belying the assertions of PW-5 that he (PW-5) had informed PW-1 about the occurrence, even the evidence of PW-1 shows that it was not PW-5, but it was PW-1's sisters' Tapashi and Atashi (none of whom have been examined) who had informed PW-1 about the occurrence and, on being so informed by them, PW-1 came to the place of occurrence. Neither the evidence of PW-1 nor the evidence of his mother (PW-4) gives any indication that PW-5 had found the injured lying or had informed anyone about the occurrence or about the fact that Ashok had been found lying injured by him.

(2.) To enable a Court to place reliance on a dying declaration, the dying declaration has to inspire confidence and a dying declaration canot inspire confidence unless it is proved to be consistent. If there are different versions given by different witnesses as to whose name/names an injured had disclosed as his assailant/assailants, such a dying declaration will be highly unsafe to place reliance upon.

(3.) Thus, even if, for a moment, we assume that the evidence given by PW-1, PW-4 and PW-5, on the one hand, and PW-2, on the other hand, are both true, the logical conclusion will be that while the said victim was lying injured with an arrow pierced in his chest, he, admittedly, made inconsistent statements indicating, sometimes, that it was Mangra Mura alone, who had injured him, and, sometimes, indicating that Budhuwa Mura as well as Mangra Mura had both injured him. Since the deceased is shown to have made two distinctly different and irreconcileable assertions as regard the name/names of his assailant, it will be highly unsafe, in our view, to place any reliance on the so-called dying declaration of the deceased that Budhuwa Mura too was involved in the occurrence, particularly, when at the initial stage, the deceased had named only Mangra Mura as his assailant.