STATE Through Advocate General And Another vs ZARD ALI And Other
This matter concerns two petitions for leave to appeal filed by the State and a complainant against the judgment of the Peshawar High Court, which acquitted two respondents previously convicted of murder. The trial court had initially convicted the respondents under Section 302/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860, sentencing them to life imprisonment. The High Court, while acknowledging the promptness of the FIR and the presence of independent ocular evidence, overturned the conviction based on discrepancies between the medical evidence, the site plan, and the version of the occurrence provided by eye-witnesses. The State argued that the High Court misapplied legal principles regarding the weight of oral evidence versus medical evidence and site plans, citing established Supreme Court precedents. The Supreme Court granted leave to appeal to examine whether the High Court's acquittal was based on well-recognized principles for the safe administration of criminal justice. The Court ordered the issuance of bailable warrants for the respondents pending the appeal.
- Does the acquittal of an accused based on discrepancies between medical evidence and ocular testimony align with the established principles for the safe administration of criminal justice?
- Can medical evidence be used to contradict ocular evidence that is otherwise considered convincing and free from taint?
- Is a site plan intended to corroborate or contradict the version of an occurrence provided by eye-witnesses?
- Section 302, Pakistan Penal Code 1860
- Section 34, Pakistan Penal Code 1860
ORDER
1. SHAFIUR RAHMAN, J.--By two separate petitions; one by the complainant and the other by the State, leave to appeal is sought against the same judgment of the Peshawar High Court, dated 14th of May, 1985 whereby the criminal appeal of the two convict-respondents was allowed and they were acquitted of the charges under section 302/34, P.P.C., and their conviction and sentence therefore, was set aside.
2. On the 19th of December, 1981 Sabz Ali was shot dead in village Kandar, Police Station Nowshera Kalan, District Peshawar. A case was registered against the two respondents and two others. The learned trial Court held the two respondents guilty convicted them under section 302/34, P.P.C.
3. Sentenced both to life imprisonment and a fine of Rs.10,000 each or in default to undergo R.I. For two years. Their other two companions were acquitted.
4. On their appeal against conviction and sentence, the High Court found that the case against them was not free from doubt and acquitted them. The grounds on which their acquittal was recorded appear from the following conclusions drawn by the High Court:- "There is no doubt that the report of the occurrence has been made in this case with all the possible promptness. The ocular evidence too, to a greater extent has come from independent witnesses, in that none of the witnesses has any animosity with the appellants and, therefore, the chances of false implication is remote. In the F.I.R. And at the trial the appellants and the acquitted accused have been charged in very clear terms. The particulars of the weapons which the appellants and the acquitted accused were armed with at the relevant time and the role played by each of the appellants and the acquitted accused have also been specified with exactitude. Te trouble in this case, however, started when the medical evidence and the site plan was read in juxtaposition with the version of the occurrence given by the two eye-witnesses."
5. The learned Assistant Advocate-General, Peshawar, has urged that if the oral evidence is convincing and free from taint the medical evidence can be used for corroborating it and the site plan only for contradicting it. According to him, the view taken by the learned Judges in the High Court is not in accord with the law laid down by this Court in Bacha Said v. The State PLD 1978 SC 102; Yaqoob Shah v. The State PLD 1976 SC 53 and Taj Muhammad v. Muhammad Yusuf and 2 others PLD 1976 SC 234.
6. We consider that the question whether the acquittal of the respondents proceeds on the well- recognised principles for safe administration of criminal justice requires examination. Leave to appeal is, therefore, granted. Bailable warrants of arrest in the sum of Rs.25,000 with one surety in the like amount each shall issue against the two respondents returnable to the District Magistrate, Peshawar.