1972 PLP 448 (SCMR)

SAJJAD AHMAD, J.‑This is a jail appeal by Ghulam Hussain, appellant, who was condemned to death by the learned Sessions Judge, Bahawalpur, for the murder of Mst. Rehm, and awarded 7 years' R. I. for the attempted murder of Mst. Maqsud Mai. His convictions and sentences were confirmed by the Lahore High Court. The appellant filed a jail petition for special leave to appeal to this Court, which was allowed. Mufti Nazar Muhammad, who appeared for the appellant at State expense, took us through the record of the case. The brief facts are that the appellant took fancy for Mst. Maqsud Mai, P. W. 5, and tried to persuade her to have illicit connections with him. She refused. He then sought the assistance of Mst. Rehm, who was related to him and who was also the sister‑in‑law of Mst. Maqsud Mai, to help him in this matter. She abused him and turned him out of the house. The appellant is alleged to have committed these offences as a revenge for his insult and his frustrated passion. According to the prosecution case, on the night of occur rence, viz., the 19th of April 1968, at about 4 a.m., the deceased was sleeping on a cot along with her daughter, Mst. Naziran, aged about 7 years, and P. W. Mst. Maqsud Mai in the court yard of her house. Ghulam Farid; the husband of the deceased was sleeping in a separate cot. The appellant entered the court yard and started giving hatchet blows to Mst. Rehm. Her shrieks woke up Mst. Maqsud Mai, who raised an alarm. The appellant then turned towards her and inflicted hatchet blows on her. Ghulam Farid and Mst. Naziran, who were also awakened, identified the appellant as it was, a moonlit night. Their alarm attracted P. Ws. Khuda Bakhsh, Naseer and Jindwadda, who were living close by. The appellant thereafter fled away but he was chased by the witnesses and apprehended in the house of his maternal uncle, Wahid Bakhsh Kotana. In the meantime, P. Ws. Abdul Aziz, Lambardar, and Khuda Bakhsh, the ex‑Chairman of the local Union Council, also reached the spot, and the appellant allegedly confessed his guilt before them. A blood‑stained hatchet was also recovered from him. Ghulam Farid lodged the First Information Report at about 6‑3fl a.m. the same day at the Uch Sharif Police Station, which is at a distance of 10 miles from the place of occurrence. Ghulam Farid was examined by the committing Court and he died before the trial of the case started in the Sessions Court. His statement was transferred to the Sessions file under section 33 of the Evidence Act. In this state ment, Ghulam Farid went back on his First Information Report, and tried to throw the identity of the appellant in doubt by stating that he, was unable to identify the assailant, who was clad in white clothes. The prosecution case, however, was supported at the trial by P.W. Mst. Maqsud Mai and P. W. 12 Jindwadda, who gave ocular evidence in the case. Abdul Aziz, Lambardar, explained the somersault taken by Ghulam Farid by saying that he had taken money from the appellant and compromised the matter. As stated by the learned Judges of the High Court, it appears that even the Lambardar, and Khuda Bakhsh, P. W. 6, and Naseer, P. W. 7, tried to spoil the prosecution case by making concessions and variations in their statements to help the appellant. The learned Judges were, therefore, quite right in discarding their evidence as undependable. The learned Judges of the High Court have based the appellant's conviction on the statements of Mst. Maqsud Mai, the injured witness, and P. W. Jindwadda, who fully supported the prosecution case. Mst. Maqsud Mai had received 9 injuries with a sharp‑edged weapon during the incident, out of which 6 were grievous. Her presence ‑at‑the spot and the opportunity to identify the assailant cannot be doubted. She had no falls, motive to charge the appellant except that she had turned dawn the overtures of the appellant, which furnished the motive for the appellant to, commit this dastardly crime. The appellant' plea that he was charged because Abdul Aziz, Lambardar, bore enmity against him, and that the eye‑witnesses also deposed against him because they were under his influence, was rightly rejected by the Courts below as wholly untenable. We are satisfied that the convictions of the appellant are well‑based on the testimony of Mst. Maqsud Mai and Jindwadda, P: W., which was rightly' accepted by the learned Judges of the High Court: There is no substance in this appeal, which is dismissed. Appeal dismissed.