P L D 1956 Federal Court 43 (PLP)

CORNELIUS, J.‑

The petitioner Chan Shah stands con victed of murder and sentenced to death by order of the Lahore High Court, made upon appeal by the Provincial Government against his acquittal by a Sessions. Judge. A warrant for his arrest was issued by the High Court at the time when the appeal was admitted. It was duly executed, and the petitioner was subsequently enlarged on bail. He was on bail when the conviction and sentence were pronounced by the High Court, and since that time, he has not surrendered himself to the authorities, nor, it appears, has it been possible for the authorities to secure his arrest. In consequence, the execution of the order duly made by the High Court in the dispensation of justice, has so far been defeated through the petitioner remaining at large. In that situation, viz., as a fugitive from justice, Chan Shah presented himself before Mr. Nazir‑ud‑din, an Attorney of this Court, and signed a power‑of‑attorney in his favour, for the presentation to this Court of a petition for special leave to appeal. The petition was duly made and Mr. Nazir Ahmad Khan has appeared on Chan Shah's behalf on three separate dates, viz., the 5th, the 20th and to‑day, the 27th October. It was made clear to him that the Court would not act in aid of a person who was " fugitive from justice, but, at his request, adjournments were allowed on the first two dates in the expectation that his client could be induced to appear. To‑day, he is constrained to admit that his efforts to this end have ended in failure. He has pleaded that the case should be examined by this Court under what he describes as "inherent powers". The statutory provisions relating to this Court do not provide any "inherent powers" of the kind necessary for the entertainment of the present petition. The principles upon which this Court acts to revise the decisions of subordinate tribunals in criminal cases have been exhaustively considered in a number of pronouncements by the Court itself, as well as its predecessor, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Its functions are) confined to the limits of the Sovereign's prerogative in the sphere of the administration of justice, which are succinctly stated in the judgment of the Privy Council in the case R. v. Bertrand (LR 1 PC 520) as follows :‑ " . . the inherent prerogative right and on all proper occasions, the. duty of the Queen in Council to exercise an appellate jurisdiction, with a view not only to ensure, so far as may be, the due administration of justice in the individual case, but also to preserve the due course of procedure generally". The present is an "individual case", and, in our opinion, it is an essential condition of the administration of justice, i a case affecting an individual or individuals that the person concerned should submit to the due process of justice. We cannot conceive of a more flagrant violation of this condition than a case‑like the present‑where the individual seeks the interference of the Sovereign to obtain revision of a judicial order, when he is himself engaged in setting that judicial order at naught. We accordingly dismiss this petition, by reason of its being, in the existing circumstances, wholly unsuitable for the exercise of this Court's special jurisdiction in criminal cases. The follows from what has ricer said above that Attorneys and Advocates who appear to present petitions, on the criminal side‑other than those which lie as of right‑are under a duty to see that they are acting in furtherance of justice. It seems to us that this duty is clearly violated when aid, for securing interference by this Court with a judicial order, is given by these officers of the Court to persons who, to their knowledge, are in contempt, i.e., as fugitives from justice, without at the same time ensuring that such persons conform to the judicial orders applicable to them. In the present case, the minimum requirement, in relation to this Court, was that the Attorney should have taken steps to secure the appearance of the petitioner before this Court on the first day that the petition came up for hearing. He may, at the same time, have roved, through counsel, for an order suspending execution of the High Court sentence. The course adopted by the Attorney in the present case was, in our opinion, not in accordance with his proper duty. A.H Petition dismissed.