1969 PLP 495 (SCMR)

Hamid‑ud‑Din, Advocate Supreme Court instructed by Nazir‑ud‑Din, Attorney for Appellants. Mushtaq Ahmad, Advocate‑General West Pakistan (Muhammad Iqbal Hussain, Advocate Supreme Court with him) instructed by Ijaz Ali, Attorney for the State. Date of hearing : 8th October 1958. MUHAMMAD MUNIR, C. J.‑At about 6 o'clock on the evening of 28th September 1956, a mob of men from village Rasoolabad, carrying sharp‑edged weapons and fire‑arms, entered the bazar of Gharhi Khairpur and started indiscriminately attacking and killing the Hindu shopkeepers. In the course of this murderous expedition four Hindus, namely, Awatmal, Tahkanmal, Shivalmal and Hiromal were killed and Paroomal, Dalpat, Balomal, Jeomal, Snagatmal and Chetumal injured. One Muslim refugee Ghulam Sabir was also killed. Twelve persons were prosecuted for the offences thus committed. Of them six were acquitted by the Sessions Judge, Jacobabad, while the remaining six were convicted and sentenced for murder, attempted murder and illicit possession of fire‑arms the sentence for murder in each case being death. The appeal from these convictions and sentences were heard, in the first instance by Constantine and Lari, JJ. who agreed in acquitting three of the appellants but differed in regard to the remaining three, namely, Ghaibi, Mullan Muhammad and Muhammad Umer. Constantine; J. being of the opinion that their appeals should be dismissed and Lari, J. being of the view that they also should be acquitted. The matter, therefore, came up before a third Judge, Bachal, J., who agreed with Constantine, J., with the result that the convictions and sentences of these three persons were maintained. We gave special leave to appeal because of the difference between the members of the original Bench. We have once more read the three opinions and heard counsel at length who has taken us through the evidence and have come to the conclusion that the judgment of the High Court must be affirmed. The main reason given by Lari, J. was that the prosecution witnesses who had mentioned and identified the present appellants had also identified persons with wrong names from among the other accused. Some of these witnesses had claimed that they knew the accused by name, but when asked to pick out the accused bearing different names they ii‑d pointed at the wrong persons. This was taken by Lari, J. to mean that the witnesses were untrustworthy and unreliable and the thought that convictions founded on such evidence could not be support. The other two Judges, however, took a closer view of the evidence and examined the allegations of the various witnesses against each person and came to the conclusion that their statements could be safely accepted against the three appellants and that there could be no doubt as to their complicity. We consider that the case was rightly approached by these learned Judges in determining the question: of guilt of the appellants. Against Ghaibi there were as many as eight witnesses, including three Muslims, of whom four had been injured in the transaction. Against Muhammad Umer there were specific allegations by Balu that this appellant had fired a revolver at him from a close range, wounding him very badly. The other two witnesses, Mullan Tahir and Juma who are both Muslims equally implicated him. Similarly, there were witnesses against Mullan Muhammad, namely, Sobho, one of the injured persons, Balu and Juma who is a Muslim. Having given our best consideration to this case, we are of the opinion that the appellants were rightly convicted and that no ground for interfering with the convictions and sentences exists. The appeal is therefore dismissed. Appeal dismissed,