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Petitioner: MUHAMMAD RAMZAN VS Respondent: THE STATEHonorable Justice MUHAMMAD YAQUB ALITassaduq Hussain,Nemo
1968 P Cr
1968 P Cr. L J 1840
[Supreme Court]
Present: Fazal-e‑Akbar and Muhammad Yaqub Ali, JJ
MUHAMMAD RAMZAN‑Petitioner
Versus
THE STATE‑Respondent
Petition for Special Leave to Appeal No. 107 of 1967, decided on 23rd May 1968.
(On appeal from the judgment and order of the High Court of West Pakistan, Lahore, dated the 22nd February 1968, in Criminal Appeal No. M. R. No. 49 of 1967).
Penal Code (XLV of 1860),
S. 302‑‑Accused a police officer shooting deceased with Government fire‑arm in police station ---High Court on conviction affirming sentence of death‑Special leave to appeal on ground merely going into appreciation of evidence‑--Refused by Supreme Court.
Tassaduq Hussain, Senior Advocate Supreme Court (Almas Ali Sheikh, Advocate Supreme Court with him) instructed by Masood Akhtar Sheikh, Attorney for Petitioner.
Nemo for the State.
Date of hearing: 23rd May 1968.
ORDER
MUHAMMAD YAQUB ALI, J.‑The petitioner has been condemned to death under section 302, P. P. C. for the murder of one Taj Muhammad anal the High Court has on appeal and reference confirmed the conviction and sentence.
Leave to appeal is asked for on grounds which go to mere appreciation of evidence. The deceased was; on 14‑7‑1966, summoned along with Sadiq Muhammad, etc. P. Ws. to the Police Station Abbas Nagar, District Bahawalpur, in connection with an application made by Ghulam Hussain, P. W. against them under section 107,/151, Cr. P. C. The petitioner and his colleagues Ghulam Qadir and Muzaffar Ali, P. Ws., asked the deceased and his companions to take off their clothes as a preparation for subjecting them to torture. As a was the month of Ramzan the deceased protested that they should not be beaten till such time they had broken the fast. At this the petitioner grappled with the deceased, but the latter managed to get out of his grip. A commotion was raised in the police compound as a result of which the deceased and Sadiq Muhammad, etc., were confined in the lock‑up. A little later the petitioner hand‑cuffed the deceased; brought him out of the lock‑up; and shot him in the neck with a ride. Alawal Khan, Ghulam Qadir and Muzaffar Ali, P. Ws., deposed that the deceased had in the course of a scuffle with the petitioner attacked him with a danda, but the blow was warded off and hit one of them, namely, Ghulam Qadir. They intervened and separated the deceased and the petitioner where upon the latter fired from a rifle which he carried which hit the deceased in the neck.
The learned Judges in the High Court concluded that it was highly improbable that the deceased had resorted to violence in the police station and accepted the version given by Sadiq Muhammad, etc., P. Ws. On looking into the circumstances attending upon the crime we agree with the view which prevailed with the learned Judges in ruling out the plea of private defence of person adopted by the petitioner. We further find that even if the version given by Alawal Khan, etc., was accepted it was a case of premeditated murder. The deceased and the petitioner had already been separated effectively by the said P. Ws., when the petitioner fired at the deceased.
The conviction and sentence awarded to the petitioner for the gruesome crime which he committed by the use of Government fire‑arm in the police station were thus well founded and call for no interference.
The petition for leave to appeal is dismissed.
Leave refused.