IN THE HIGH COURT OF SINDH

AT LARKANA

Present:

Shamsuddin Abbasi, J.

Agha Faisal, J.

C.P D-297  of 2024              :           Muhib Ali Leghari vs.

Government of Sindh, through Secretary, Home Department and others.

For the Petitioner                 :           M/s. Meer Ahmed Mangrio and Abdul

Sattar Hulio, Advocates

Date of hearing                    :           07.05.2024

Date of Order                        :           07.05.2024

ORDER

Agha Faisal, J.         The petitioner essentially seeks for a recent first information report to be quashed while the same is admittedly pending investigation. It is also prayed all proceedings pursuant to the registration of the FIR may be set at naught and the respondents be precluded from arrest.

            At the very onset learned counsel was confronted with the maintainability hereof inter alia as to how / why this Court must interfere in a pending investigation. In so far as the objections to the FIR were concerned, counsel was queried as to why the same could not be placed before the investigating officer and / or the concerned court. On the issue of preclusion of arrest, the counsel was queried as to why such relief was directly sought in writ jurisdiction, while eschewing the adequate remedy enshrined in the law. Respectfully, learned counsel remained unable to articulate a cogent response on either count.

The Supreme Court had illumined in Ghulam Muhammad[1], back in 1967, that if an offence had been committed justice required that it should be enquired into and tried by the competent forum. In the absence of a finding of guilt the accused had a right to be honorably acquitted by the competent court and vice versa. Abjuring the recourse to regular proceedings by deflection to the High Court was duly deprecated. Ghulam Muhammad was relied upon in Bajwa[2] and Aleem[3]and the Supreme Court considered refusal of the High Court to deflect the normal course of a criminal case, through exercise of writ jurisdiction, as salutary. Muhammad Afzal Zullah CJ., while, approving the authority cited supra, observed in Habib Ahmed[4] that if prima facie an offence had been committed, the ordinary course of trial, before the competent court, was not to be allowed to be deflected through an approach to the High Court. The august Supreme Court, while allowing an appeal against an order of the High Court, held in Sardar Khalid[5] that by allowing recourse to writ the High Court erred in law by short circuiting the normal procedure of law, while exercising equitable jurisdiction which is not in consonance with the law.

In view of the preponderance of binding authority, cited supra, it is our considered view that the ordinary course of criminal proceedings could not be allowed to be deflected by resort to writ jurisdiction in the present facts and circumstances. The statutory fora are competent to determine the viability of the relevant criminal proceedings and regulate the custody of the accused. No case has been set forth before us to merit the invocation of the discretionary[6] writ jurisdiction of this Court in such regard; therefore, this petition is hereby dismissed, along with pending applications, in limine.

                                                                                    Judge

Judge

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[1]Per HamoodurRehman J. in Ghulam Muhammad vs. Muzammal Khan & Others reported as PLD 1967 Supreme Court 317.

[2]Per AslamRiaz Hussain J. in Abdul RehmanBajwa vs. Sultan & Others reported as PLD 1981 SC 522.

[3]Per Muhammad Afzal Zullah J. in Abdul Aleem vs. Special Judge (Customs) Lahore & Others & Others reported as 1982 SCMR 522.

[4]A Habib Ahmed vs. MKG Scott Christian & Others reported as PLD 1992 Supreme Court 353.

[5]Per Chaudhry Ijaz Ahmed J. in Haji Sardar Khalid Saleem vs. Muhammad Ashraf & Others reported as 2006 SCMR 1192.

[6]Per IjazUl Ahsan J. in Syed Iqbal Hussain Shah Gillani vs. PBC & Others reported as 2021 SCMR 425; Muhammad Fiaz Khan vs. Ajmer Khan & Another reported as 2010 SCMR 105.