Ussainar Naleem v. The Hon. Attorney General – CA202/2013-2013

In the case between the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (represented by the Attorney General) and Ussainar Naleem, the court addressed the issue of whether the conviction for two counts of murder, substantially grounded in an alleged dying declaration, was sustainable in law and on the facts. The court determined that the conviction was unsafe due to material contradictions, lack of corroboration, and deficiencies in the evaluation of the dying declaration’s reliability. The established legal principle that a conviction cannot rest solely on an uncorroborated and unreliable dying declaration was reaffirmed. Reliance was placed on both local and Indian precedents governing the evaluation of such evidence, emphasizing that authenticity, consistency, and independent corroboration a