JUDGMENT SHEET

IN  THE  HIGH  COURT  OF  SINDH, CIRCUIT  COURT,  LARKANA

Crl.Acquittal.Appeal.No.D-47 of 2021.

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DATE                                       ORDER WITH SIGNATURE OF HON’BLE JUDGE

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Before:

Mr. Justice Irshad Ali Shah,

                                                                                    Mr. Justice Shamsuddin Abbasi,

01. For orders on M.A.No.7798/2021 (U/A).

02. For orders on office objection “A”

03. For orders on M.A.No.7799/2021 (E/A)

04. For orders on M.A.No.7800/2021 (417 (2-A)

05. For hearing of main case.

15.12.2021

                        Mr. Faiz Muhammad Larik, Advocate for the appellant.

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IRSHAD ALI SHAH, J.- It is the case of prosecution that private respondent with rest of the culprits, in furtherance of their common intention, committed murder of Mst.Lal Bibi by causing her fire shot injuries after declaring her to be “Kari”, for that the present case was registered. After due trial, the private respondent was acquitted by learned 1^st Additional Sessions Judge, Shahdadkot, by way of judgment dated 09.11.2021, which is impugned by the appellant before this Court by claiming to be aggrieved person by such acquittal being mother of the deceased.

                        It is contended by learned counsel for the appellant that learned trial Court has recorded acquittal of the private respondent without proper appraisal of evidence, which needs to be re-appraised by this Court after issuance of notice to learned Addl.P.G for the State and private respondent.

                        We have considered the above arguments and perused record.

                        The FIR of the incident has been lodged on behalf of the State by ASI Barkat Ali on the basis of narration made to him by PW Baggan. PW Baggan together with PW Babu on account of their failure to support the case has been declared hostile to the prosecution. In the circumstances, the learned trial Court has recorded acquittal of the private respondent by making the following observation;

“The close perusal of evidence of the private prosecution witnesses namely Baggan who is informer as well as eye witness of the alleged  incident and another eye witness namely Babu who are main and star prosecution witnesses. As per evidence of eye witnesses above named that about 04 to 05/07 to 08 accused persons came and attempted to have robbed their cattle and Mst.Lal Bibi was also available with them, they all had resisted with the robbers on that robbers had made firing due to which Mst.Lal Bibi had sustained bullet injury and consequently she had been died then the accused  persons made their escape good. Thereafter, eye witness namely Baggan being father of deceased Mst.Lal Bibi had informed and police came at the place of occurrence. He (informer) further deposed that police did not secure anything in his presence and police officer recorded his statement. He also clearly deposed that accused Punhal present in Court is his real nephew and he is not his actual culprit, which reflects that the informer being eye witness and another eye witness above named have not supported the prosecution case by not implicating the present accused to be the same, for whom the prosecution had alleged that he alongwith other accused had committed the murder of deceased Mst.Lal Bibi. Hence, in absence of credible and confidence inspiring evidence regarding guilt of accused, it would be contrary to the principles of administration of justice to hold the above named accused guilty of the offence”.

                        Thus, it could be conclude safely that the learned trial Court was right to have recorded acquittal of the private respondent by way of impugned judgment, which is not found to be arbitrary or cursory to be interfered with by this Court by way of instant criminal acquittal appeal.

                        In case of State and others vs. Abdul Khaliq  and others                (PLD 2011 SC-554), it has been observed by the Hon’ble Apex Court that;

“The scope of interference in appeal against acquittal is most narrow and limited, because in an acquittal the presumption  of innocence is significantly added to the cardinal rule of criminal jurisprudence, that an accused shall be presumed to be innocent until proved guilty; in other words, the presumption of innocence is doubled. The courts shall be very slow in interfering with such an acquittal judgment, unless it is shown to be perverse, passed in gross violation of law, suffering from the errors of grave misreading or non-reading of the evidence; such judgments should not be lightly interfered and heavy burden lies on the prosecution to rebut the presumption of innocence which the accused has earned and attained on account of his acquittal. Interference in a judgment of acquittal is rare and the prosecution must show that there are glaring errors of law and fact committed by the Court in arriving at the decision, which would result into grave miscarriage of justice; the acquittal judgment is perfunctory or wholly artificial or a shocking conclusion has been drawn. Judgment of acquittal should not be interjected until the findings are perverse, arbitrary, foolish, artificial, speculative and ridiculous. The Court of appeal should not interfere simply for the reason that on the reappraisal of the evidence a different conclusion could possibly be arrived at, the factual conclusions should not be upset, except when palpably perverse, suffering from serious and material factual infirmities”.

                        In view of the facts and reasons discussed above, instant criminal acquittal appeal fails and it is dismissed in limine together with listed applications. JUDGE

JUDGE