IN THE HIGH COURT OF
SINDH, KARACHI
Criminal Acquittal Appeal No. 518 of 2021
Appellant: Haji
Gul through Syed Suleman Badshah, advocate
Respondent No.1: N/R
Respondent No.2: The
State through Syed Meeral Shah Addl. P.G for the State
Date of Hearing: 13.07.2022
Date of Judgment: 13.07.2022
J U D G M E N T
IRSHAD
ALI SHAH, J-. It is alleged that the private respondent not only
fired at the appellant with intention to commit his murder but caused him butt
blows with his pistol for that he was booked and reported upon. After due trial,
he was acquitted by learned XIII-Assistant Sessions Judge, Karachi West vide
Judgment dated 23rd August 2021, which is impugned by the appellant
before this Court by preferring the instant Acquittal appeal.
2. It is contended by learned counsel for the
appellant that learned trial court has recorded acquittal of the private
respondent on the basis improper assessment of the evidence therefore his acquittal
is liable to be examined by this Court.
3. Learned
Addl. P.G for the State has sought for dismissal of instant acquittal appeal by
supporting the impugned judgment.
4. Heard
arguments. Perused record.
5. The
fires made at the appellant allegedly by the private respondent with intention
to commit his murder proved to be ineffective in all respect which appears to
be surprising. The appellant and the private respondent are related inter-se
and more so, P.Ws Muhammad Zakir, Abdul Rahim, Abdul Ahad, Bari Dad and
Qudratullah being independent persons have not been examined by the prosecution
for no obvious reason. The inference which could be drawn of their
non-examination would be that they were not going to support the case of the prosecution.
In these circumstances, learned trial Court was right to record acquittal of
private respondent, such acquittal is not found to be arbitrary or cursory to
be interfered with by this Court.
6. In
case of State and others vs. Abdul Khaliq
and others (PLD 2011
SC-554), it has been held 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”.
7. In
view of above, the instant Acquittal Appeal fails and it is dismissed
accordingly.
J U D G
E