Dying declaration, The dying declaration is a state-ment by a person as to the cause of his death or as to any of the circumstances of the transaction which resulted in his death and it becomes relevant under s. 32(1) of the Indian Evidence Act in a case in which the cause of that person's death comes into question. It is true that a dying declaration is not a deposition in court and it is neither made on oath nor in the presence of the accused. It is, therefore, not tested by cross-examination on behalf of the accused. But a dying declaration is admitted in evidence by way of an exception to the general rule against the admissibility of hearsay evidence, on the principle of necessity, Tapinder Singh v. State of Punjab, (1970) 2 SCC 113: AIR 1970 SC 1566: (1971) 1 SCR 599.
(ii) a dying declaration stands on the same footing as any other evidence and it is to be judged in the surrounding circumstances and with reference to the principles governing the weighting of evidence. The court must, in order to test the reliability of a dying declaration, keep in view the circumstances like the opportunity of the dying man for observation, for example, whether there was sufficient light if the crime was committed at night, whether the capacity of the man to remember the facts stated had not been impaired at the time he was making the statement by circumstances beyond his control, whether the statement has been consistent throughout if he had several opportunities of making a dying declaration apart from the official record of it and whether the statement has been made at the earliest opportunity and was not the result of tutoring by interested parties, Bhayani Luhana Radhabai v. State of Gujarat, (1977) 1 SCC 762