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43. As per Section 32 (1) of the Evidence Act 1872, whenever the statement is made 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, such statements are relevant whether the person, who made them was or was not, at the time when they were made, under expectation of death.

44. The Hon'ble Apex court in the case of Paras Yadav and Others Vs. State of Bihar reported in 1999 2 SCC 126 had the occasion to consider the contingency, wherein the statement so recorded by the Sub-Inspector, has been treated as valid dying declaration, the Hon'ble Apex Court in paragraph nos. 5, 8, 9 and 10 has observed as under:-

"5. The learned Counsel referred to the evidence of P.W. 1, Basgeet Yadav who has stated that at 8.00 p.m., he rushed to the newly built bridge and saw Sambhu Yadav lying there and he was bleeding. Sambhu, on being asked, informed that Paras Yadav, Tulsi and Munshi surrounded him and Paras gave a chhura blow. Similarly, P.W. 2, Bachu Das stated that he alongwith Jagannath was going home on bicycle and when they reached at the distance of 200 yards from Ghogha Chowk, they saw five persons going away. They were Paras, Munshi, Tulsi and Satan and fifth person could not be identified. At Ghogha Chowk, they saw Sambhu falling down in an injured condition. On inquiry, Sambhu told that Munshi, Tulsi and Satan caught hold of him and Paras gave a Chhura blow. The statement to the aforesaid effect was made by Sambhu to Sub- Inspector. Similarly, P.W. 4, Ramchander Raut also stated that he rushed to the place of occurrence after hearing the noise and found that Sambhu had fallen down on the pitch road. On inquiry, Sambhu told that he was stabbed by Paras while Tulsi, Munshi and Satan had caught hold of him. P.W. 5 Kanchan Yadav, deposed similarly and has stated that Sambhu told him that he was sur-rounded by Munshi, Tulsi, Satan and Paras and Paras stabbed him on abdomen. He also deposed it with regard to the enmity between Sambhu and others accused on account of the land dispute.

290. "In such cases, the story of the prosecution will have to be examined de hors such ommissions and contaminated conduct of the officials otherwise the mischief which was deliberately done would be perpetuated and justice would be denied to the complainant party and this would obviously shake the confidence of the people not merely in the law enforcing agency but also in the administration of justice."

9. In this view of the matter with regard to Paras Yadav, in our view, there is no reason to disbelieve the oral dying declaration as deposed by number of witnesses and as recorded in farbdeyan of deceased Sambhu Yadav. The farbdeyan was recorded by the Police Sub-Inspector on the scene of occurrence itself, within few minutes of the occurrence of the incident. Witnesses also rushed to the scene of offence after hearing hulla gulla. The medical evidence as deposed by p.w. 11 also corroborates the prosecution version. Hence, the courts below have rightly convicted Paras Yadav for the offence punishable under Section 302 I.P.C.

57. In the case of C. Muniappan & Ors. Vs. State of Tamil Nadu reported in 2010 (9) SCC 567, the Hon'ble Apex Court in Paragraph no. 55 has observed as under :-

"55. There may be highly defective investigation in a case. However, it is to be examined as to whether there is any lapse by the I.O. and whether due to such lapse any benefit should be given to the accused. The law on this issue is well settled that the defect in the investigation by itself cannot be a ground for acquittal. If primacy is given to such designed or negligent investigations or to the omissions or lapses by perfunctory investigation, the faith and confidence of the people in the criminal justice administration would be eroded. Where there has been negligence on the part of the investigating agency or omissions, etc. which resulted in defective investigation, there is a legal obligation on the part of the court to examine the prosecution evidence de hors such lapses, carefully, to find out whether the said evidence is reliable or not and to what extent it is reliable and as to whether such lapses affected the object of finding out the truth. Therefore, the investigation is not the solitary area for judicial scrutiny in a criminal trial. The conclusion of the trial in the case cannot be allowed to depend solely on the probity of investigation. (Vide Chandra Kanth Lakshmi v. State of Maharashtra, AIR 1974 SC 220; Karnel Singh v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (1995) 5 SCC 518; Ram Bihari Yadav v. State of Bihar, AIR 1998 SC 1850; Paras Yadav v. State of Bihar, AIR 1999 SC 644; State of Karnataka v. K. Yarappa Reddy, AIR 2000 SC 185; Amar Singh v. Balwinder Singh, AIR 2003 SC 1164; Allarakha K. Mansuri v. State of Gujarat, AIR 2002 SC 1051; and Ram Bali v. State of U.P., AIR 2004 SC 2329)."