Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has ordered that a dying declaration should be recorded in the mother tongue as the utterances of a dying person could be changed while translating them into another language.
The dying declaration recorded in a language other than a person's mother tongue was not acceptable as evidence in a court of law, a division bench of Justices P N Sinha and P S Dutta said while acquitting a man sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly killing his wife.
The order was passed on Tuesday but a certified copy was available only on Friday.
Fatik Let was acquitted by the court after it observed that his illiterate wife's dying declaration was recorded in English in August 1992.
The Court observed gross inconsistency in the separate dying declarations submitted by the doctors and said that people did not speak in any language other than their mother tongue in a dying stage.
As per the prosecution, Fatik's wife Minati was admitted to Rampurhat sub-divisional hospital with serious burns. She later died and her dying declaration was recorded by a police officer.
On the basis of a complaint by Minati's brother that Fatik and two others set her on fire, all three were arrested, but police could frame charges only against Fatik.
Fatik was convicted by a sessions judge of Rampurhat in Birbhum district in March 2003 for setting his wife on fire, with the court citing the victim's dying declaration.
He later challenged the order in Calcutta High Court, which observed that the conviction was entirely based on the woman's dying declaration and that it should be recorded in the victim's mother tongue.
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