1969 PLP 12 (SCMR)

(d) Supreme Court Rules, 1956, O. XXVI

‑Words

and be accompanied by a certificate of counsel that petitioner has reasonable and proper grounds for review"‑Senior Advocates granting certificate indiscriminately and without responsibility imposed on them‑Practice frowned upon. Abdur Rahim than, Advocate Supreme Court instructed by Masud Akhtar, Attorney for Petitioner. Nemo for the State. Date of hearing : 10th October 1968. HAMOODUR RAHMAN, J.‑The petitioner was convicted under section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code and sentenced to death. The High Court upheld his conviction and sentence. He then came up to this Court for special leave to appeal but his petition was dismissed. The prosecution case against him was supported by 4 eye witnesses of whom two were brothers of the deceased and the other two were independent and disinterested witnesses who were living in close proximity to the house of the deceased. The High Court did not rely upon the testimony of the two brothers of the deceased but was so "much impressed" by the evidence of the other two that it thought it safe to rely upon that evidence, particularly, since it was further confirmed by a dying declaration made by the deceased to these witnesses and by the recovery of the knife stained with human blood, at the instance of the petitioner himself. In view of these clear findings of the High Court this Court refused to interfere and dismissed the petition for special leave to appeal. The petitioner now seeks to have this reviewed and the main ground upon which this review is sought is that this Court was under a misconception in taking the view that the evidence of the two brothers of the deceased was also relied upon by the High Court. This, however, is incorrect, for, all that this Court has said is that the two brothers as also two others, namely, Allah Banda (P. W. 10) and Sultan Mahmood (P. W. 11), supported the prosecution case. The next contention of the learned counsel is that this Court had not considered the evidence as fully as it ought to have done, It is not the practice of this Court to consider every item of evidence at the time of the hearing of a petition for special leave to appeal. This Court does not, as a rule, enter into questions of appreciation of evidence by the Courts below. Nor is that a ground upon which special leave can be claimed. The complaint is, therefore, wholly unjustified. The only, object of the review appears to be to get a rehearing of the petition. This is not the function of a review. In any event, this petition is out of time by 5 days and in the application for the condonation of delay the only ground set out is that the petitioner being a poor person found great difficulty in arranging the expenses for the filing of this review petition. Poverty by itself is not a ground for condonation of the delay. This petition for review is, in our opinion, wholly misconceived and is dismissed both on merits as well as on the ground of limitation. Before parting with this case we cannot help regretting that a learned Senior Advocate of this Court has granted a certificate in this case justifying the filing of the review petition which, as we have already stated, is wholly misconceived. The whole object of the certificate by a Senior Advocate was to ensure that frivolous review petitions are not filed but if Senior Advocates grant certificates without due regard to the responsibility imposed upon them, some other steps may have to be taken to put a stop to this. Petition dismissed.