Reliable dying declaration and hospital records can sustain a murder conviction despite investigative defects and delayed reporting.

Interference with an acquittal is justified where the trial court's view is perverse, rests on misreading of evidence, or is based on conjecture rather than the record. The Court treated the deceased's dying declaration in hospital records, supported by doctors' evidence and contemporaneous medical entries, as reliable proof identifying the assailant. Defects in investigation and delay in forwarding the injury report did not undermine that trustworthy evidence. On that basis, the conviction for murder was sustained and the acquittal was set aside.

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Issues: Whether the High Court erred in reversing the acquittal and convicting the appellant for murder on the basis of the evidence, including the dying declarations recorded in the hospital records.

Analysis: In an appeal against acquittal, interference is warranted where the trial court's approach is perverse, based on misreading of evidence, or rests on conjecture rather than material on record. The evidence of the doctors and the contemporaneous hospital entries showed that the deceased was conscious for a relevant period and consistently named her brother-in-law as the assailant. The medical records and the statements of the doctors corroborated each other, and the trial court's rejection of that evidence was founded on assumptions not supported by the record. Defects in investigation and delay in transmitting the injury report did not discredit the otherwise trustworthy prosecution evidence.

Conclusion: The High Court was justified in setting aside the acquittal and in sustaining the conviction under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

Final Conclusion: The conviction recorded by the High Court was upheld and the appeal failed.

Ratio Decidendi: A conviction may be sustained on a reliable dying declaration and contemporaneous medical records, and an acquittal may be reversed where the trial court's view is vitiated by perversity, misreading of evidence, or conjecture.

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