of the accused may be unnatural because he was residing in the very same house, however, the conduct which may be a relevant fact under Section 8 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (for short, ‘the Act 1872’), by itself may not be sufficient to hold a person guilty of the offence of murder. 47. On overall assessment of the materials on record, we have reached to the conclusion that neither the two dying declarations inspire any confidence nor the oral evidence of the PW-2 and PW-4 respectively inspire any confidence. Had the dying declarations stood corroborated by the oral evidence of the PW-2 and PW-4, then probably, it would have been altogether a different scenario. However, as noted above, the two dying declarations are not consistent or rather contradictory to the oral evidence on record. 48. The justification for the sanctity/presumption attached to a dying declaration, is two fold; (i) ethically and religiously it is presumed that a person while at the brink of death will not lie, whereas (ii) from a public policy perspective it is to tackle a situation where the only witness to the crime is not available. 49. One of the earliest judicial pronouncements where the rule as above can be traced is the King’s Bench decision of the King v. William Woodcock reported in (1789) 1 Leach 500 : 168 ER 352, where a dying woman blamed her husband for her mortal injuries, wherein Judge Eyre held this declaration to be admissible by observing: "…the general principle on which this species of evidence is admitted is, that they are declarations made in extremity, when the party is at the point of death and when every hope of this world is gone: when every motive to falsehood is silent, and 24