In Brief
Poonam Bai was convicted by the High Court for murdering her aunt Vimla Bai by setting her on fire with kerosene. The High Court's conviction rested on a dying declaration allegedly recorded by a Naib Tehsildar and oral statements from family members. The Supreme Court reversed the conviction and restored the acquittal, finding that the dying declaration was unreliable (only photocopy produced, no witness signatures, allegedly recorded from an unconscious victim), and the oral dying declaration was an afterthought introduced only at trial, not in police statements. With no other evidence and no proven motive, the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.
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