RIAZ AHMAD vs THE STATE
This is a jail petition filed by Riaz Ahmad against his conviction under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860 and sentence of death for the murder of his mother-in-law, Mst. Noor Sain, arising from a dispute over sending his wife back to his house. The core legal question revolves around whether the prosecution case is free from doubt, considering contentions regarding an unsupportive eye-witness and alleged discrepancies between ocular testimony and medical evidence concerning the firearm injuries. The Supreme Court granted leave to consider the arguments, holding that the submissions regarding the reliability of the prosecution case require further examination. The principle laid down is that material discrepancies between medical evidence and ocular testimony, along with unsupportive eye-witness accounts, necessitate a deeper review of the conviction in capital punishment cases.
- Whether discrepancies between medical evidence and ocular testimony regarding firearm injuries create sufficient doubt to warrant a re-examination of a murder conviction?
- Does the failure of an alleged eye-witness to support the prosecution case affect the reliability of the conviction under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860?
- Section 302, Pakistan Penal Code 1860
ORDER
1. ' NASIM HASAN SHAH, J.--This is a petition from Jail by Riaz Ahmad, petitioner herein, who has been convicted, inter alia, under section 302, P.P.C. And sentenced to death for causing the murder of his mother-in-law Mst. Noor Sain.
2. ' The relevant facts very briefly are that the petitioner was married to Mst. Kalsoom, P.W.7, daughter of Mst. Noor Sain deceased. He used to act towards his wife with cruelty and often used to beat her whereupon she would go back to her parents to escape from his cruel behaviour. On previous occasions, however, the petitioner had been successful in bringing her back on promises of better behaviour in future but on the fateful day when the petitioner went to bring her back, after she had left him to escape from his cruelty, Mst. Noor Sain mother of Mst. Kalsoom, refused to send her back.
3. Conciliation efforts by the habitants of Mohallah were not successful and Mst. Noor Sain flatly refused to send her daughter back. The petitioner got annoyed at this and fired two shots at his mother-in-law which caused her death. He also fired another shot which injured Mst. Ehsan Bibi and a child Hanifan Bibi. The petitioner, in these circumstances, was found guilty under section 302, P.P.C. And sentenced to death.
4. The learned counsel for the petitioner has, inter alia, argued that one of the alleged eye-witnesses, Ghulam Hussain (P.W.14) the brother of Muhammad Sadiq complainant (the husband of the deceased, Mst. Noor Sain) has not supported the prosecution case; there is a discrepancy between the medical evidence and the testimony of the eye-witnesses, in that while, according to the eye- witness, the petitioner had fired two shots at the deceased, both of which hit her, the medical evidence indicated that Mst. Noor Sain had received only one shot which entered the fore-arm of the deceased and went out from the inner side of the arm and then re-entered her chest region.
5. The submission that the case of the prosecution is not free from doubt requires further consideration.