JAMIL AHMAD and 2 others vs THE STATE
This matter arises from a petition for pre-arrest bail filed by Jamil Ahmad and others seeking relief in F.I.R. No. 205/2008 registered under sections 420, 468, and 471 of the Pakistan Penal Code at Police Station Lower Mall Lahore. The core legal question concerns whether the petitioners were entitled to pre-arrest bail in a case involving allegations of fraudulent alienation of agricultural property through a fabricated general power-of-attorney bearing spurious thumb impressions and signatures. The Lahore High Court dismissed the petition and recalled the interim pre-arrest bail, holding that prima facie incriminatory material including a Finger Print Bureau report connected the petitioners to the offense, and no mala fide or exceptional circumstances were established to warrant the extraordinary concession of pre-arrest bail. The court laid down the principle that in cases of patent fraud supported by forensic evidence regarding fabricated documents, and in the absence of demonstrated mala fides or improper motive by the complainant, pre-arrest bail is rightly refused.
- Whether pre-arrest bail can be granted when there is prima facie incriminatory material connecting the accused to the offense of fraud?
- Does a pending civil suit bar criminal proceedings regarding the same property dispute?
- Whether the existence of a family dispute alone justifies the grant of pre-arrest bail in cases of alleged forgery?
- Section 420, Pakistan Penal Code 1860
- Section 468, Pakistan Penal Code 1860
- Section 471, Pakistan Penal Code 1860
ORDER
' M. BILAL KHAN, J.---Jamil Ahmad and Khalil Ahmad sons of Muhammad Bashir, and Muhammad Akbar son of Fateh Muhammad petitioners seek pre-arrest bail in case F.I.R. No,205/2008 dated 22- 2-2008, registered with Police Station Lower Mall Lahore, for offences under sections 420, 468 and 471, P.P.C.
2. The case had been registered at the instance of Nazir Ahmed son of the Fateh Muhammad, who happens to be the real brother of Muhammad Akbar petitioner and a paternal uncle of Jamil Ahmed and Khalil Ahmed petitioners. The prosecution case as contained in the F.I.R. Was that the complainant and his brother Muhammad Munir's agricultural property the details whereof find mention in the F.I.R. Had fraudulently been got alienated by the petitioners after manufacturing a General Power-of-Attorney by putting spurious thumb impressions and signatures on the same.
3. The petitioners application for pre-arrest bail had been turned down by the learned Additional Sessions Judge Lahore, on 31-3-2008. Hence the instant petition.
4. It was argued by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the petitioners were innocent and had committed no offence; that the petitioners happened to be closely related to the complainant and that the F.I.R. Had been lodged with a view to settling certain family disputes regarding the property and other matters between respective families of the complainant and the accused; that there is delay of twenty-two months in lodging the F.I.R. Inasmuch as the General Power-of Attorney was got registered in the year 2006, whereas F.I.R. Was recorded on 22-2-2008; that a Civil suit has been filed by Jamil Ahmed, petitioner against the complainant and others, which is pending before a civil Court at Lahore during the pendency of which no action on criminal side could be taken; that the F.I.R. Has been recorded against the petitioners only to harass and blackmail them.
5. On the other hand Mr. Ihsaan Ali Sheikh, Advocate for the complainant strenuously opposed pre- arrest bail of the petitioners and submitted that the complainant and his brother have been deprived of their valuable property and that the fraud committed by the petitioners is patent on the record; that report of the Finger Print Bureau clearly establishes that fraud had been committed as signatures and thumb impressions of Nazir Ahmed, complainant and his brother Muhammad Munir, do not tally with the thumb impressions and signatures existing on the General Power-of- Attorney.
6. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties and examining the record it has been observed that prima facie there is ample incriminatory material available against the petitioners which prima facie connects them with the commission of offence. Nazir Ahmed complainant and his brother Muhammad Munir were present in the Court with their grown up sons. Prima facie there was no occasion for the complainant and his brother to have executed General Power-of-Attorney in favour of the petitioners when they were themselves in a position to look after their property and in their absence their grown up children were there. On a Court question as to what was the family dispute, which had arisen between the brothers, inter se which according to the petitioners had prompted the complainant party to get the case registered against them the petitioners as well as their learned counsel miserably failed to point out any such feud or discord. The precedents cited by the learned counsel for the petitioner viz Ch. Basharat Karim v. Muhammad Ishtiaq Chandoor and another (2007 SCM R 1546), Rizwan Iqbal v. The State (2007 SCM R 1392), Muhammad Arshad Kausari v. The State (2007 YLR 1282), Muhammad Amjad v. The State (2007 P.Cr.LJ 1977), Tahir Mahmud and another v. State 2007 PCr.LJ 112 and Moulana Abdul Shakoor Khairpuri v. The State (2008 M LD 472) proceed on distinguishable facts and do not advance the case of the petitioners for grant of pre-arrest bail. The learned counsel for the petitioners has remained unable to point out any malice on the part of the complainant or the police to have falsely implicated the petitioners. No special feature of the case is identifiable entitling the petitioners to the grant of extraordinary concession of pre-arrest bail. There is no merit in his petition, which is accordingly dismissed and ad interim pre-arrest bail allowed to the petitioners vide order dated 4-4-2008, is hereby recalled.