P L D 1983 Supreme Court 73 (PLP)

ASLAM RIAZ HUSSAIN, J.-The petitioners seek Leave to Appeal against the judgment of a learned Single Judge of the Lahore High Court, dated 14-1-1982, dismissing their criminal revision.

2. The learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that the impugned judgment recorded by the learned High Court is not a speaking one and the petitioners' revision has been dismissed merely by an observation that . "the two Courts below concurrently found against the petitioners and the learned counsel has failed to persuade me to take a different view in the revisional jurisdiction." He submitted that the case be remanded for rehearing and recording a fresh judgment giving reasons for the dismissal of the petitioners' revision petition.

3. It can easily be seen that the order of the High Court is in no manner a speaking one. It makes no mention of the points raised, nor doe it contain the reasons for disposing of the same. No doubt, the revisional power of the High Court, vested in it by section 439 of the Criminal Procedure Code, does not create any right in any party but only conserves the power of the High Court to see that justice is done in accordance with the recognised rules of criminal jurisprudence and the High Court is not bound to interfere in every case of illegal or irregular order. Nevertheless, if the High Court entertains an application for revision and bears the applicant, it is expected that it will notice the contentions raised before it, if relevant, and record its reasons for rejecting the same. This is necessary not only to show that mind has been applied to the contentions but will also help this Court, in case the party comes before us, to appreciate the correctness or otherwise of the decision. Any deviation from this norm will make the decision unsatisfactory. It does not mean that the order should be unnecessarily lengthy but it should at least disclose to this Court that the l exercise of the revisional power has been declined on sound principles of law relating to dispensation of criminal justice.

4. We have been noticing of late that criminal cases are at times disposed of by High Courts in such a summary manner that it may become necessary in some suitable cases to remand the same to the High Court for rehearing and fresh decision. In the present case, however, we refrain from doing so and have instead gone through the record ourselves in order to see if the impugned judgment can be upheld. (sic) considering, its correctness or otherwise. We have noticed, of late, that some of the judgments recorded by the High Court in criminal cases are disposed of in such a summary manner that even the offence of which the accused has been charged and the section of the P. P. C. under which he has been convicted is not mentioned and we have to go through the entire file to find out the facts of the case for ourselves. It does not mean that the judgments in appeals or revisions or orders disposing of bail applications should be unnecessarily lengthy, but., what we do require is. that though short they must be sufficiently explicit to enable the appellate Court to get some idea as to the facts of the case and to consider whether the reasons on which it has been disposed of and are sound and justifiable. It would, of course, be a different matter if no appeal, revision lies against the judgment or order. We were, at first inclined to remand the case for rehearing but in deference to the learned Judge of the High Court we refrained from doing so and went through the impugned judgment and all the record ourselves in order to see if the impugned judgment could be upheld.

5. The present case arose over a dispute about the possession of a house in Village Kotla Mir Baz Khan, District Sargodha. The house in question originally belonged to non-Muslims but had been occupied by the accused persons since Partition. Subsequently in 1969 it was "allotted" to Ghulam Mustafa complainant who then filed a suit against the accused for possession and obtained a decree, which was subsequently got executed and possession of the house was delivered to the complainant through Muhammad Yasin Patwari (C. W. 1). The accused resented this and at about 8/9 a.m. on 10-4-1980, when Ghulam Mustafa complainant was sitting in the house alongwith Mangta (P. W. 2) and Fajar Ali (P. W. 3), all the five accused namely, Abdur Rehman, Ahmad Khan, Abid Khan, Allah Bakhsh and Jehan Khan, armed with dangs, raided the house and forcibly occupied it. They also broke open locks of the rooms and took away the articles of daily use belonging to Ghulam Mustafa, which were lying therein. The matter was reported to the police by the complainant (Ghulam Mustafa). After due investigation the accused were tried for offence under section 148/448/452 read with S. 149, P. P. C. The prosecution case rested mainly on the ocular testimony of Ghulam Mustafa (complainant P. W. 1), Mangta (P. W. 2) and Fajar Ali (P. W. 3). Muhammad Yasin Patwari Halqa who was said to have got the possession of the house in question delivered the complainant in execution of the decree, was examined as a Court witness. He fully supported the prosecution version as to the delivery of possession of the said house on 28-2-1980. His statement is in turn supported by the entries made in the Roznamcba Waqiati maintained by him. The accused denied their guilt stating that they themselves were in possession of the House in question at the relevant time and that its possession had never been delivered to the complainant. In support of their plea they produced two defence witnesses, namely, Abdullah and Nazir Ahmad, who stated that no such occurrence had taken place on 10-4-1980.

6. The learned trial Magistrate convicted all the five accused and sentenced each of them to 2 years' R, 1. under sections 452/149, P. P. C. and one year R. 1. each under section 148, P. P. C. Both the sentences were ordered to run concurrently. The accused filed an appeal against their conviction and sentence which was dismissed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Sargodha, on 5-1-1982. However, in view of the fact Jehan Khan accused was about 75 years of age, the learned Appellate Court took a lenient view of the matter and reduced his sentence to that already undergone by him. The present petitioners then filed a Criminal Revision before the High Court which was dismissed by a summary order referred to above.

7. The main contentions urged by the learned counsel for the petitioners were that there was a delay of two days in lodging the F:

1. R. ; that the learned Courts below had not taken due notice of the discrepancies in the statements of the eye-witnesses ; that they failed to consider and give weight to the testimony of the two defence witnesses and that the complainant's possession of the house in question was not established.

8. Having gone through the F. I. R. and the entire evidence on the record, we feel that the testimony of the eye-witnesses is absolutely reliable. Mangta (P. W. 2) and Fajar Ali (P. W. 3) are independent persons and then have fully supported the version given by Ghulam Mustafa complainant. The defence has failed to bring out any material - discrepancy in their testimony and we find no reason why they should have been disbelieved. More over Muhammad Yasin Patwari who was examined as a Court witness has supported the prosecution version with regard to the delivery of possession of the house in question by Ghulam Mustafa complainant much before the incident. Having read the judgments of the trial Magistrate and the Additional Sessions Judge, Sargodha we find that they have discussed the testimony of the P. Ws. at length. They have also fully considered the statements of the defence witnesses and have rightly rejected them.

9. The delay in lodging the F. I. R. itself is not material in this case. In the first place the complainant has explained the reason for the delay in the F.

1. R. and secondly if he wanted to concoct a false story be could have easily stated in the F. I. R. that the accused had trespassed his house on the same day, because there was no danger of disproving such an assertion by showing, for example, the medical evidence (if any) showing that the incident had taken place earlier than alleged. In view of the above discussion we feel that there is no merit in the petition which is consequently dismissed. M. S. H. QURESHI, J. -.I agree that there is no reasonable ground for interference. S. A. H. Petition dismissed.