IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN 
(Appellate Jurisdiction) 
 
PRESENT: 
Mr. Justice Mushir Alam, Chairman  
Mr. Justice Sardar Tariq Masood 
Mr. Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed 
Dr. Muhammad Al-Ghazali, Ad-hoc Member-I 
Dr. Muhammad Khalid Masud, Ad-hoc Member-II 
 
 
 
 
Criminal Shariat Appeal No.12 of 2017 
(On appeal against the judgment dated 
22.11.2014 passed by the Federal Shariat 
Court, Islamabad, in Criminal Appeal No. 
8-Q of 2013 and Criminal Murder Reference 
No.1/1 of 2013)  
 
 
Muhammad Hayat 
Wakeel and  
Ghous Bakhsh @  Shshdad @ Ahsan 
 
 
 
…Appellant(s) 
 
 
 
 
 
Versus 
 
 
The State  
 
…Respondent(s) 
 
 
For the Appellant(s): 
Mr. Saghir Ahmed Qadri, ASC 
 
For the Complainant: 
Nemo 
 
For the State: 
Syed Baqir Shah, ASC/State Counsel 
 
Date of hearing: 
01.12.2020. 
 
JUDGMENT 
 
 
 
    Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed, J.- Through leave of 
the Court impugned herein is Federal Shariat Court’s judgment dated 
22.11.2014, whereby appellants’ conviction and sentences awarded by 
the learned trial Court vide judgment dated 10.02.2013 were upheld; 
they were tried for committing Qatl-i-Amd of Muhammad Siddique, 
Liaqat Ali and Abdul Jabbar during a robbery on 23.11.2010 at 8:30 
p.m. within the precincts of Police Station Bhag District Kachhi, 
Balochistan. First Information Report was recorded at 8:45 p.m. on the 
application of Muhammad Salah-ud-Din (PW-1). According to the 
complainant, his son Muhammad Siddique and grandson Liaqat Ali, 
employed respectively in Levies and Police, accompanied by Abdul 
Jabbar Jaboja, riding on a motorbike, were on way to Goth, followed on 
Criminal Shariat Appeal No.12 of 2017 
 
2
another motorbike by Asad Khan and Abdul Razzaq PWs, were fired 
upon by three unknown armed assailants who decamped the scene 
latter along with the official weapons and the motorbike. Liaqat Ali and 
Abdul Jabbar Jaboja breathed their last at the spot whereas 
Muhammad Siddique succumbed to the injuries later. Witnesses 
viewed the occurrence in motorbikes’ headlamps light. Abdul Jabbar 
deceased was noted with three entry wounds whereas Muhammad 
Siddique and Liaqat Ali with two entry wounds each alongwith 
corresponding exits. As the investigation progressed, the appellants 
were arrested on 28.12.2010; they were later put to a test identification 
parade wherein Abdul Razzq (PW-3) and Ahad Khan (PW-4) correctly 
identified them as the culprits. Pursuant to disclosures, the appellants 
led to the recovery of Kalashnikovs respectively used by them during 
the occurrence; these were forensically found wedded with the casings 
secured from the spot. Snatched official gun was recovered as well. The 
appellants claimed trial, pursuant whereto, prosecution produced as 
many as nine witnesses; of them Abdul Razzaq (PW-3) and Ahad Khan 
(PW-4) furnished ocular account, prosecution’s mainstay. The trial 
concluded in appellants’ conviction under clause (b) of section 302 as 
well as section 392 of the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860; they were 
sentenced to death with a direction to pay compensation in the sum of 
Rs.200,000/- on each count though erroneously mentioned as fine; on 
the charge of robbery, the appellants were sentenced to 10-years RI 
with fine of Rs.50,000/- each.  
2. 
 
Mr. Saghir Ahmed Qadri, ASC, contends that the 
assailants, admittedly strangers to the witnesses, were not named in 
the crime report and as such appellants’ induction in the array on the 
basis of a momentary glimpse/observation by the witnesses in the 
darkness of night with a source of light manifestly deficient, the 
possibility of mistaken identity is looming large on the horizon; he also 
highlighted witnesses’ inability to assign specific roles with vehemence 
to argue that prosecution’s failure on the said count drastically 
diminished evidentiary value of the exercise, otherwise carried out in 
the police station. To visit the appellants with ultimate and irreversible 
corporeal punishment on the basis of evidence inherently deficient and 
flawed would be potentially unsafe, concluded the learned counsel; he 
has 
alternately 
prayed 
for 
alteration 
of 
death 
penalty 
into 
imprisonment for life on the ground that in the face of joint 
Criminal Shariat Appeal No.12 of 2017 
 
3
indiscriminate firing, the appellants could not be individually saddled 
with specific shots, sustained by the each deceased, an ambiguity that 
can be viewed as extenuating in circumstances. The learned Law 
Officer has faithfully defended the impugned judgment.  
3. 
 
Heard. Record perused. 
4. 
 
There was no previous bad blood; the deceased on way were 
unsuspectingly surprised in a sudden encounter at 8:30 p.m. in the 
month of November; complainant presented written application, 
converted into First Information Report at 8:45 p.m. at the Police 
Station located at a distance of 3/4 kilometers from the venue. 
Muhammad Siddique, in injured condition, was medically examined 
under a police docket at 9:30 p.m, soon whereafter autopsies 
commenced. There is a remarkable promptitude with none blamed by 
name. 
This 
circumstance 
by 
itself 
conclusively 
established 
prosecution’s bona fides in recourse to law. The appellants were put to 
test identification parade under magisterial supervision on the same 
day, shortly after their arrest, wherein the witnesses correctly identified 
them as the ones who targeted the deceased during the robbery. 
During the process, each witness distinctly pointed each appellant for 
having targeted the deceased; their identification by the witnesses, 
without loss of time, rules out possibility of manipulation. Argument 
that police station was not an appropriate place for the holding test 
identification parade is entirely beside the mark inasmuch as the law 
does not designate any specific place to undertake the exercise; on the 
contrary, Rule 26.32 of the Police Rules, 1934, inter alia, provides as 
under: 
(a) “The proceedings shall be conducted in the 
presence of a magistrate or gazetted police 
officer, or, if the case is of great urgency and 
no such officer is available, in the presence of 
two or more respectable witnesses not 
interested in the case, who should be asked to 
satisfy themselves that the identification has 
been conducted under conditions precluding 
collusion. 
(b) Arrangement shall be made, whether the 
proceedings are being held inside jail or 
elsewhere, to ensure that the identifying 
witnesses shall be kept separate  from each 
other and at such a distance from the place of 
identification and shall render it impossible for 
them to see the suspects or any of the persons 
concerned in the proceedings, until they are 
called up to make their identification.” 
(c) …….” 
Criminal Shariat Appeal No.12 of 2017 
 
4
A combined reading of above Rules with Article 22 of the Qanun-i-
Shahdat Order, 1984, does not restrict the prosecution to necessarily 
undertake the exercise of test identification parade within the jail 
precincts. Prosecution of offences and administration of justice are not 
dogmatic rituals to be followed relentlessly in disregard to the exigencies 
of situations, seldom identical or ideal. All that ‘due process of law’ 
requires is a transparent investigation and fair trial, in accord with 
statutory safeguards, available to an accused to effectively conduct his 
defence without being handicapped or embarrassed. In the absence of 
any statutory restriction to the contrary, the objection does not hold 
water. On factual plane, learned counsel has not been able to point out 
even obliquely any collusion, conspiracy or consideration impelling the 
witnesses to hurriedly swap innocent proxies to the dismay of 
devastated families, enduring abiding trauma. Reference to omission of 
assailants’ features in the crime report as a ground to discard the test 
identification parade is equally inconsequential; Part C of the Lahore 
High Court Rules and Orders Volume-III (adopted by the High Court of 
Balochistan) does not stipulate any such condition. In the natural 
course of events, in an extreme crisis situation, encountered all of a 
sudden, even by a prudent onlooker with average nerves, it would be 
rather unrealistic to expect meticulously comprehensive recollection of 
minute details of the episode or photographic description of awe-
inspiring events or the assailants. The pleaded requirement is callously 
artificial and, thus, broad identification of the assailants, in the absence 
of any apparent malice or motive to substitute them with the actual 
offenders, is sufficient to qualify the requirement of Article 22 of the 
Order ibid. Darkness possibly impeding identity of the assailants, 
argued at length, fails to impress us as headlamps of three motorbikes, 
recovered during investigation, generated sufficient light to enable the 
witnesses to capture broad facial features of the assailants, 
encountered at close blank. Three Kalashnikovs, recovered upon 
appellants’ disclosure, were forensically found wedded with the casings 
secured from the spot barring six with points of dissimilarity, a minor 
discrepancy insufficient to tremor the structure of the case resting upon 
sound foundations of ocular account through sources unimpeachable 
and free from taints. On an overall analysis of prosecution evidence, the 
only possible hypothesis is that of appellants’ guilt.  
Criminal Shariat Appeal No.12 of 2017 
 
5
Alternate plea of commutation of death penalty into imprisonment 
for life on the ground that simultaneous multiple fire shots by the 
assailants left no space to possibly determine fatalities distinctly, 
a circumstance according to the learned counsel, by itself calling for 
alternate punishment of imprisonment for life, fails to commend 
approval inasmuch as the totality of circumstances does not admit any 
space to divisibly draw any such benign distinction within the realm of 
human wisdom when all the three assailants in a petty criminal pursuit 
ruthlessly targeted the deceased in cold blood. Scales are in balance 
and the wage settled by the courts below being conscionable in 
circumstances merits no interference. Criminal Shariat Appeal fails. 
Dismissed.  
 
  
 
 
 
Chairman 
 
 
Member 
 
Member 
 
 
Member 
 
Member 
Islamabad, the 
1st December, 2020 
Not approved for reporting 
Azmat/-