ORDER SHEET

IN THE HIGH COURT OF SINDH, KARACHI

Cr. Misc. Appl. No.32 of 2009

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For Katcha Peshi.

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Dated: 22nd April 2009

Mr. Muhammad Adnan, Advocate for Applicants.

Mr. Mian Khan Malik, DAG for the State.

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NADEEM AZHAR SIDDIQI, J : By filing this application under Section 561-A, Cr.P.C. the applicants have prayed for quashment of the proceedings arising out of FIR No.18/2009 of FIA, AHT Circle, Karachi.

      The allegations against the applicants in the FIR are that the applicants attempted to proceed Baku (Azerbaijan) for onward journey to Europe/Spain for seeking job under the garb of visit visas with the blessing of their respective agents, who after demanding and receiving handsome amounts from them arranged/managed visit visas and return tickets to them, for the destination Baku on the pretext to send them to Europe/Spain for employment purpose after spending one month in Baku.

      Learned counsel for the applicants submits that the applicants have directly filed this application before this Court for the reason that they are residents of Sialkot and have no place to live in Pakistan and that the Trial Court normally takes longtime to proceed such application. He then submits that since there is no independent witness and material available on record to connect the applicants with the alleged offence there is no probability of conviction of the applicants and the proceedings before the Trial Court are abuse of the process of Court.

      Learned DAG has vehemently opposed for grant of this application on the ground that before approaching this Court the applicants should have first moved before the Trial Court for redressal of their grievances. He submits that material is available on the record to connect the applicants with the alleged offence and whether the witnesses are independent or not, cannot be decided without trial. He then submits that the FIR was rightly registered by the FIA and proceedings can not be quashed without providing opportunity to the prosecution to establish its case against the applicants.

      I have heard the learned counsel for the parties and perused the record made available before me.

      The applicants have directly approached this Court without first approaching the Trial Court. The learned counsel for applicants has failed to demonstrate any extraordinary circumstance for directly approaching this Court.

Quashment of a criminal case is an extraordinary remedy which could be invoked only in exceptional circumstances where trial of accused tantamount to abuse of process of Court and the said provisions could never be exploited as a substitute for the prescribed trial. When law provides a detailed inquiry into offence, then ordinarily and normally the procedure prescribed by law for deciding the fate of the case should be followed unless some extraordinary circumstances are shown to exist to abandon the regular course and follow the exceptional course.

      The test laid down by the superior courts for interference in pending criminal proceeding is that if the proceedings are allowed to continue they should result in grave miscarriage of justice and there should exist no other provisions of law by which the aggrieved party could seek relief. The other test laid down is that the allegation in the FIR and the statements of the witnesses recorded by the police, if taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety no offence is made out.

The inherent power of High Court under Section 561-A, Cr.P.C. cannot be invoked in the presence of other specific remedy available to the applicants. The power under the above section can only be invoked in the rare case where there appears to be no probability of conviction of the accused.

      In view of the above discussion, no case for direct approaching this Court has been made out, hence this application has no merits, which is accordingly dismissed. The applicants should approach the Trial Court first and in case, they file application before the Trial Court it will be decided strictly in accordance with law within a period of one month.    

With the above observations this Cr. Misc. Application is disposed of.     

JUDGE