IN THE HIGH COURT OF SINDH, CIRCUIT COURT LARKANA
Crl. Acquittal Appeal No.S-119 of 2022
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Appellant/Complainant |
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Noor Hassan by caste Bhangwar,
Through Mr. Safdar Ali Ghouri, Advocate. |
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Date of hearing |
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16.01.2023 |
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Date of decision |
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16.01.2023 |
JUDGMENT
ZULFIQAR ALI SANGI, J;- The instant Criminal Acquittal Appeal is directed against the judgment dated 05.11.2022, passed by learned 1st Civil Judge & Judicial Magistrate/MTMC, Kashmore, in Case No.79 of 2022 (Re.St.Vs. Khathoor @ Khathoor Khan and others), emanating from FIR bearing Crime No.54 of 2022 for offence punishable U/S.382, 215 PPC, registered with Police Station, Buxapur, whereby respondents/accused Khathoor @ Khathoor Khan and six others were acquitted.
2. The facts of the case are already mentioned in memo of Criminal Acquittal Appeal as well as FIR, hence the same need not to be repeated.
3. On completion of usual investigation, the police submitted final challan against the respondents/accused before learned trial Court where the case papers were supplied to them under receipt and the formal charge was framed against them, to which they pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.
4. To prove its case, the prosecution examined in all five witnesses who produced all the relevant documents in support of their statements. Thereafter, the learned State Counsel closed its side vide such statement kept on record.
5. The respondents/accused in their statements recorded in terms of Section 342 Cr.PC denied the allegations leveled against them by pleading their innocence. However, they neither examined themselves on oath nor led any evidence in their defence.
6. The learned trial Court after hearing the Counsel for the parties and assessment of the evidence acquitted the respondents/accused by way of impugned judgment as discussed above.
7. Per learned counsel for the appellant/complainant that learned trial Court has passed the judgment in violation of law and there was sufficient material on record to convict the respondents/accused but learned trial Court acquitted them on flimsy grounds; that the evidence of complainant was corroborated by his witnesses and no major contradiction was noticed in their evidence; that the judgment passed by the learned trial Court is not based on cogent reasons which requires to be set aside. Lastly, he prayed for admitting the instant criminal acquittal appeal and issuance of the notice to the concerned.
8. Heard learned counsel for appellant/complainant and perused the material made available on the record.
9. The perusal of judgment reveals that the learned trial Court acquitted to the respondents/accused with the following reasons;
“The perusal of memo of inspection of place of incident reveals the time as 1830 hours while the investigating officer also deposed in his cross examination that they reached at the place of incident at 1830 hours and jotted down the contents of place of incident at 1830 hours hence, it casts the doubt over the proceedings that how he became able to get so the different things simultaneously.
Perusal of record suggest that there is unexplained delay of 19 days in lodging the FIR for which no any substantial and confidence inspiring proof has been brought on record even though the P.S was at the distance of 11/12 k.m away, resultantly it amounts the story of prosecution as managed and well consulted. In this regard I placed my reliance on the reported case law 2019 P Cr.LJ-Note-128 Page-144).”
10. It is well settled by now that the scope of appeal against acquittal is very narrow and there is a double presumption of innocence and that the Courts generally do not interfere with the same unless they find the reasoning in the impugned judgment to be perverse, arbitrary, foolish, artificial, speculative and ridiculous as was held by the Honourable Supreme Court in the case of State Versus Abdul Khaliq and others (PLD 2011 SC 554), wherein the Hon’ble Supreme Court has held as under;-
From the ratio of all the above pronouncements and those cited by the learned counsel for the parties, it can be deduced 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. It has been categorically held in a plethora of judgments that 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. Moreover, in number of dictums of this Court, it has been categorically laid down that such judgment should not be interjected until the findings are perverse, arbitrary, foolish, artificial, speculative and ridiculous (Emphasis supplied). The Court of appeal should not interfere simply for the reason that on the re-appraisal 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. It is averred in The State v. Muhammad Sharif (1995 SCMR 635) and Muhammad Ijaz Ahmad v. Raja Fahim Afzal and 2 others (1998 SCMR 1281) that the Supreme Court being the final forum would be chary and hesitant to interfere in the findings of the Courts below. It is, therefore, expedient and imperative that the above criteria and the guidelines should be followed in deciding these appeals.
11. Based upon the above discussion, I am of the considered view that the learned trial Court has committed no illegality or irregularity while recording acquittal of the respondents/accused by way of impugned judgment which even otherwise does not call for any interference by this by way of instant Criminal Acquittal Appeal, the same fails and is dismissed in limine together with listed application.
JUDGE