MAQBUL AHMED TABASSAM vs THE STATE

ORDER

1. ' ANWARUL HAQ, C. J.- This review petition had been dismissed for non-prosecution on the 7th of April, 1980. For the reasons given in the Criminal Miscellaneous Petition No, 21-R/80, we restore the same, and proceed to dispose it of on merits.

2. ' This petition seeks a review of the order of this Court dated the 22nd of October, 1979, by which Criminal Petition for Special Leave to Appeal bearing No, 18-P of 1979, was dismissed, and petitioner's conviction for the murder of one Muhammad Iqbal and his sentence of death as well as a fine of Rs, 10,000, were upheld.

3. In support of this petition, it is submitted by Mr. S. Safdar Hussain that all the eye-witnesses were related to each other and no independent witness had come forward to support the prosecution case although such persons were available ; that the place of occurrence lay in a congested area and as the offence is alleged to have been committed in broad daylight, independent witnesses must have seen the crime, but they were not produced ; that it does not stand to reason that the uncle of the petitioner should have come forward to give evidence against his own nephew as to an extrajudicial confession made by him ; that the confession was of dubious evidentiary value in the light of section 27 of the Evidence Act ; that the statement of the accused relating to the exercise of the right of private defence has not been properly examined ; that even the recovery of the weapon of offence was not proved beyond reasonable doubt ; and that the effect of mitigating circumstances, in the matter of sentence, has not been considered.

4. ' A perusal of the judgment under review shows that all the points now urged by Mr. Safdar Hussain were raised by him at the hearing of the main petition, but they were repelled by us, and he had expressed the view that even though the witnesses were brothers inter se and similarly related to the deceased, they had no enmity or motive whatsoever to falsely implicate the petitioner if, indeed, he was not the assailant. We further observed that the evidence of the three eye-witnesses found full corroboration from the extra-judicial confession deposed to at the trial by the petitioner's uncle Haji Muhammad Siddiq. We also noted that this was not a case where it could be urged with any plausibility that death of Muhammad Iqbal was the result of an accident ; and even if it had been so the petitioner would have been fully responsible for the consequences in terms of section 301 of the Pakistan Penal Code in the same manner as if he had intended to cause the death of the deceased.

5. It appears to us that the present review petition is only an attempt to obtain a rehearing of the petition, which was dismissed after a full consideration of the entire evidence brought on the record as well as the submissions made by Mr. Safdar Hussain, who had also appeared for the petitioner on the previous occasion. As the power of review is not intended for the purpose of the rehearing of the case, the present review petition has to be dismissed, and we order accordingly.