MOHSIN MUSTAFA vs STATE, etc.
This matter concerns a petition for leave to appeal against an order of the Peshawar High Court, which had refused post-arrest bail to the petitioner in a case registered under Section 489-F of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860. The core legal question was whether the provisions of Section 489-F, PPC were applicable given that the petitioner had not obtained a loan from the complainant nor held a personal obligation to discharge via the cheque in question. Additionally, the Court examined whether the magnitude of the amount involved in a criminal case is a valid consideration for refusing bail. The Supreme Court held that the applicability of Section 489-F, PPC required further probe, and that the High Court erred by considering the 'huge amount' involved as a factor for denying bail. The Court reaffirmed the principle that bail applications must be decided on their own merits rather than the financial scale of the alleged offense. Consequently, the petition was converted into an appeal, allowed, and the petitioner was admitted to bail.
- Does the involvement of a huge amount of money in a criminal case justify the refusal of bail?
- Is the offence under Section 489-F of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860 applicable where there is no underlying loan or personal obligation between the parties?
- Should bail applications be decided based on the merits of the case or the financial scale of the alleged offence?
- Section 489-F, Pakistan Penal Code 1860
ORDER
Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, J.- ' Criminal Miscellaneous Application No. 407 of 2015 ' This miscellaneous application is allowed and the documents appended with the same are permitted to be brought on the record of the main petition. Disposed of.
' Criminal Petition No. 175 of 2013
2. Through this petition Mohsin Mustafa petitioner has sought leave to appeal against the order dated 23.02.2015 passed by a learned Judge-in-Chamber of the Peshawar High Court, Peshawar in Criminal Miscellaneous No. 180-P of 2015 whereby post-arrest bail was refused to him in case FIR No. 222 registered at Police Station Gharbi Peshawar on 26.05.2014 in respect of an offence under Section 489-F, PPC.
3. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties and going through the record of the case we have straightaway observed that according to the FIR itself the petitioner had not obtained any loan from the complainant nor there was any personal obligation of the petitioner to be discharged towards the complainant by issuance of a cheque in his favour and, thus, in the peculiar circumstances of the case the question as to whether the provisions of Section 489-F, PPC stand attracted to the case against the petitioner or not is a question which calls for further probe at this stage. The petitioner had been arrested in connection with this case on 14.11.2014 and we have been informed that so far the Challan has not been submitted before the learned trial Court.
It has particularly been ' noticed by us that while refusing bail to the petitioner the learned Judge- in-Chamber of the High Court had not attended to the above mentioned legal question vis-a-vis applicability or otherwise of the provisions of Section 489-F, PPC to the case in hand and we further note that one of the considerations weighing with the High Court for refusing bail to the petitioner was that the criminal case in hand involved a "huge amount". It had been clarified by this Court in the case of Ijaz Akhtar v. The State (1978 SCM R 64) that involvement of a huge amount of money in a criminal case is to have no bearing upon the fate of an application for bail which is to be decided on the basis of its own merits and not on the basis of the amount involved.
4. For what has been discussed above this petition is converted into an appeal and the same is allowed and consequently the petitioner is admitted to bail in the above mentioned criminal case subject to furnishing bail bond in the sum of Rs. 1,00,000/- (Rupees one hundred thousand only) with two sureties each in the like amount to the satisfaction of the learned trial Court.