1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH, NAGPUR Criminal Application No.2060/2008 In Criminal Appeal No.233/2006 [Vilas Ramchandra Dhote and another .vrs. The State of Maharashtra] ............................................................................................................................................................................................. Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders Court's or Judge's order of directions and Registrar's orders ................................................................................................................................................................... Mr. S.G. Loney, Advocate for the applicants/appellants, Mr. J.B. Jaiswal, APP for the non-applicant/State. .......... CORAM : K.J. ROHEE AND B.P. DHARMADHIKARI, JJ DATED : JUNE 19, 2008 1. Heard the learned counsel for the applicants/appellants and the learned APP for the non- applicant/State. 2. According to the prosecution, Aruna w/o Pradip Shrirao had given hand-loan to Vilas Dhote (the husband of Aruna's husband's niece). On the date of incident, Aruna demanded back the amount to Vilas. Thereupon, Vilas 2 (accused no.1) and his wife Sau. Sunita (accused no.2) followed Aruna to her house. Sunita caught hold of Aruna and Vilas poured kerosene from the stove on her person and set her on fire. PSI Sharad Bandre recorded first dying declaration (Exh.42) of Aruna when she was brought to the hospital. Another dying declaration (Exh.45) was written by PW 6 Prabhakar Kapse (the Executive Magistrate). In both the dying declarations, Aruna described the specific role of Vilas (accused no.1) and Sunita (accused no.2). Both these dying declarations are consistent with each other. It is said that the oral dying declaration was made by deceased Aruna to her husband PW 3 Pradip while taking her to hospital and in that she stated that all the accused namely accused no.1 Vilas, accused no.2 Sunita and accused no.3 Sanjay set her on fire. It would thus be seen that prima facie there is sufficient evidence to uphold the written dying declarations which are relied upon by the trial court. 3. It was contended by the learned counsel for the appellants that according to deceased Aruna she was set on 3 fire inside her house, however, the spot panchanama (Exh.27) does not show any trace of any untoward incident having been committed by the accused/appellants. However, it has been brought to our notice that soon after setting her on fire by the appellants, Aruna came out of her house where fire was extinguished. In view of this, there is every possibility that no incriminating article could be found inside the house. In such circumstances, we are not inclined to release any of the appellant on bail. Hence, we pass the following order : The application is rejected. JUDGE JUDGE Gulande