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"11. It was further urged on behalf of of the appellant that the dying declaration of the deceased was an incomplete document and, therefore, could not be used against him.

Reliance was placed on the observations of the Privy Council in -- Cyril Waugh v. The King', 54 Cal WN 503 at p. 507 (A), where their Lordships were of the opinion that "the dying declaration was inadmissible because, on its face, it was incomplete and no one could tell what the deceased was about to add" and also upon the observations of Mahajan, J., as he then was, in --'Ram Nath v. State of Madhya Pradesh', , that "it was not sate to convict an accused person merely on the evidence of a dying declaration without further corroboration because such a statement is not made on oath and is not subject to cross-examination and because the maker of it might be mentally and physically in a state of confusion and might well be drawing upon his imagination while he was making the declaration".

There was no question of any incomplete statement so far as that aspect of the case was concerned. The statement in regard to the accused No. 1 having shot the deceased was complete in itself and .

it could not be said that any further questions would have elicited any information which would run counter to the same. Under the circumstances, the dying declaration, though incomplete otherwise, was complete so far as the accused No. 1 having shot the deceased was concerned and could certainly be relied upon by the prosecution.

1. (Signed in Tamil) Muthuswami Udayar.

.

2. (Signed) K. R. Perumal.

3. (Signed in Tamil) C. Kannan.

4. (Left thumb impression of) Kundaswami.

24th January, 1960. (Signed) S. A. Amir Sub-Inspector.

7. Here, the accusation against the appellant was complete, and there is of nothing to show that Elumalai wished to say anything more or that he had anything more to add. In so far as the dying declaration, goes, it is a complete statement, and makes a very clear accusation against the appellant. If this dying declaration is taken into account, then it hardly needs corroboration in view of the decision of this Court in Khushal Rao rt v. State of Bombay ([1958] S.C.R. 552). The Privy Council case, therefore, is clearly distinguishable on facts and does not apply to the dying declaration with which we have to deal. The Privy Council case was considered by this Court inAbdul Sattar v. Mysore State (A.I.R. (1956) S.C. 168), where also the dying declaration was incomplete but was quite categoric in character and definitely indicated that it was the accused in that case who had shot the deceased. The dying declaration was, therefore, acted upon. The learned counsel for the appellant attempted to distinguish Abdul Sattar's case (A. I. R. (1956) S. C. 168) on the ground that in that case there was corroboration of the dying declaration and contended that an incomplete dying declaration, if categoric in character, may be acted upon if corroborated but not if not so corroborated. In our opinion, corroboration would not always be necessary if the dying declaration is complete in its accusation and there is nothing to show that the maker of the statement had anything further to add. That is the case here. In this case, however, there is some other evidence to incriminate the accused. The injuries were caused with a knife and a knife was found at some distance from the scene of occurrence on information furnished to the police by the accused. That knife was found to be stained with human blood and the accused had in his possession a sheath which was identified as belonging to the knife by the shopkeeper who had the day previous sold the knife and the sheath to the appellant Muniappan. There is also the conduct of the appellant in surrendering himself to the police at 12.40 p. m. that is to say, within ten minutes of the occurrence. The appellant had an injury on his thumb which he apparently got in attempting to stab Elumalai. The injury was situated on the thumb of his left hand on the lateral side and must have been caused when he struck Elumalai repeatedly holding him with his left hand and wielding the weapon with his right hand. There is also evidence of motive in the shape of a quarrel which had taken place only two days previously and in respect of which the rival parties had made their respective reports to the police. There was also corroboration in the shape of a dying declaration made by Elumalai to the first prosecution witness Muthuswami when he reached the spot after Elumalai had raised a cry for help."

rt "8. We are unable to place any reliance on these observations in absence of any question put to the doctor by the accused in his cross-

examination regarding the view expressed by the author regarding the state of mind of the deceased. It has been held by this Court in several cases that whenever a particular view taken by authors of medical jurisprudence is adumbrated, the same must be put to the doctor to assess how far the view taken by the experts apply to the facts of the particular case. On the other hand, the last certificate given by the doctor towards the end of the dying declaration that the patient became semi-unconscious clearly shows that the deceased was, fully conscious when he started making the dying declaration before the doctor. For these reasons therefore, the first ground taken by the appellant fails and is not tenable. As to the second ground, namely that the dying declaration was incomplete, we are unable to accept this contention because we find that the deceased Antarjami could not answer the last question which was "what more you want to say" because he became semi-unconscious and was unable to answer any further question. A perusal of the entire dying declaration would clearly show that the doctor had asked all the necessary questions that could be asked from the deceased and the last question was merely in the nature of a formality. It is obvious that having narrated the full story there was nothing more that the deceased could add. We are therefore unable to hold that the present dying declaration is an incomplete one. Reliance was placed by the counsel for the appellant in the case of Cyril Waugh v. The King,(1)wherein it was held that no reliance could be placed where a dying declaration was incomplete. Reference to the facts of the case would show that the statement made by the deceased was really incomplete in as much as the deceased was unable to complete the main sentence where he was trying to describe the genesis and motive of the occurrence. The deceased in that case stated as "when he fired the short, he missed the other man. The man has an old grudge for me simply because.. ". It is clear from the statement of the deceased in that case that the deceased wanted to give the motive for the occurrence and other relevant facts which he could not say before the dying declaration was closed. This case therefore would have no application to the facts of the case."