1969 PLP 129 (SCMR)

Nemo for Respondents. Date of hearing : 17th October 1968. HAMOODUR RAHMAN, J.‑The respondent was convicted by the learned Sessions Judge of Bahawalpur, for the murder of his sister‑in‑law and sentenced to death under section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code. He was also convicted and sentenced to 7 years' rigorous imprisonment under section 326, P. P. C. for causing grievous injuries to Mst. Shahida Parveen, a daughter of the deceased, when she tried to protect her mother. The incident, resulting in the murder, is alleged to have taken place at 3‑30 p.m. on the 4th May 1966, and as many as 12 incised injuries were caused with a knife. The respondent, of his own accord, went to the police station and gave himself up in the presence of two witnesses along with the weapon of offence. This was seized along with the clothes in his wearing which appeared to be stained with blood. In his statements made before the Committing Court and the Court of Sessions he admitted causing the injuries but claimed to have done so because he was enraged by seeing a stranger sitting in the house of his brother, Ghaus Bakhsh, cutting jokes with his nieces. It appears that this stranger had actually been married to one of the nieces of the respondent during his absence. The motive for the crime disclosed by Ghaus Bakhsh, brother of the respondent, was that the respondent was demanding the hand of one of his daughters in Watta marriage. Since this had been refused and the girl married to an outsider; the respondent was infuriated and took revenge on that account, There were several eye‑witnesses to the incident which occurred in broad day‑light, but the learned Judges in the High Court felt that the prosecution had not come with clean hands as it had suppressed something which must have happened in. the house to enrage the respondent to the extent that he became furious and lost his self‑control. Hence they reduced the offence from section 302, P. P. C. to section 304, Part I, P. P. C. and refused to confirm his sentence of death. A sentence of only 7 years was imposed instead. The conviction and sentence under section 326, P. P. C. were however, left undisturbed. Muhammad Nawaz who was one of the witnesses in the case has now applied for leave to appeal from the judgment and order of the High Court reducing the offence of the accused on the ground that this has been done purely upon surmises and speculations although the respondent himself, in his two state ments before the Committing Court and the Court of Sessions, had not made out any case for the application of Exception I to section 300, P. P. C. We are of the view that this contention is not without] substance. Leave to appeal is, accordingly, granted to consider` whether the High Court has acted upon principles consistent with the safe dispensation of criminal justice in reducing they offence from section 302, P. P. C. to one under section 304, Part I,. P. P. C. Leave granted.