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"8. It has been contended by the learned Counsel for
the appellants that the Investigating Officer has not
bothered to record the dying declaration of the deceased
nor the dying declaration is recorded by the Doctor. The
Doctor is also not examined to establish that the deceased
was conscious and in a fit condition to make the
statement. It is true that there is negligence on the part of
Investigating Officer. On occasions, such negligence or
omission may give rise to reasonable doubt which would
obviously go in favour of the accused. But in the present
case, the evidence of prosecution witnesses clearly
establishes beyond reasonable doubt that the deceased
was conscious and he was removed to the hospital by bus.
All the witnesses deposed that the deceased was in a fit
state of health to make the statements on the date of
incident. He expired only after more than 24 hours. No
justifiable reason is pointed out to disbelieve the evidence
of number of witnesses who rushed to the scene of offence
at Ghogha Chowk. Their evidence does not suffer from
any infirmity which would render the dying declarations as
doubtful or unworthy of the evidence. In such a situation,
the lapse on the part of the Investigating Officer should not
be taken in favour of the accused, may be that such lapse
is committed designedly or because of negligence. Hence,
the prosecution evidence is required to be examined de
hors such omissions to find out whether the said evidence
is reliable or not. For this purpose, it would be worthwhile
to quote the following observations of this Court from the
case of Ram Bihari Yadav v. State of Bihar and others, J.T.
(1998) 3 SC 290.