JUDGMENT SHEET

IN  THE  HIGH  COURT  OF  SINDH, CIRCUIT  COURT,  LARKANA

Criminal Acquittal Appeal No.D-07 of 2016.

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DATE                                       ORDER WITH SIGNATURE OF HON’BLE JUDGE

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For hearing of main case.

22.02.2022

                        Mr. Ali Nawaz Ghanghro, Advocate for the appellant.

                        None for the private respondents.

Mr. Ali Anwar Kandhro, Addl.P.G for the State.

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IRSHAD ALI SHAH, J.-The facts in brief necessary for disposal of instant criminal acquittal appeal are that the private respondents, allegedly in furtherance of their common intention, put an attempt to commit robbery and during course whereof committed murder of Zulfiqar Ali by causing him fire shot injuries, for that the present case was registered. On due trial, the private respondents were acquitted by learned Sessions Judge, Kashmore @ Kandhkot, vide judgment dated 30.04.2016, which is impugned by the appellant before this Court by preferring the instant criminal acquittal appeal.

2.                     It is contended by learned counsel for the appellant that the learned trial Court has recorded acquittal of the private respondents without lawful justification; therefore, such acquittal is liable to be set aside.

3.                     None has appeared on behalf of the private respondents. However, learned Addl.P.G for the State by supporting the impugned judgment has sought for dismissal of the instant criminal acquittal appeal.

4.                     We have considered the above arguments and perused the record.

5.                     Admittedly, the FIR of the incident was lodged against unknown culprits and the names of the private respondents were disclosed by the complainant party by way of further statements. The further statements could hardly be treated as part of FIR. It is true that the private respondents were identified during course of identification parade by the complainant party but they did not ascribe the specific role in commission of the incident to any of them. No doubt, there is recovery of crime weapon(s) from the private respondents but it was not found sufficient by learned trial Court to base conviction. In these circumstances, the learned trial Court was right to record acquittal of the private respondents, by way of impugned judgment, which 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 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”.

7.                     In view of the facts and reasons discussed above, instant criminal acquittal appeal is dismissed accordingly. JUDGE

JUDGE