IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN 
(Appellate Jurisdiction) 
 
 
PRESENT: 
Mr. Justice Umar Ata Bandial 
Mr. Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed 
 
 
 
 
Criminal Petition Nos.574 & 575 of 2019  
(Against judgment dated 7.3.2019 passed by the 
Islamabad High Court Islamabad in Crl. Appeal 
Nos.204 of 2015 & 02 of 2017) 
 
 
Tasar Mehmood 
(in Crl.P. 574/2019) 
Shahbaz Ahmed 
(in Crl.P. 575/2019) 
 
 
 
…Petitioner(s) 
 
 
 
 
 
Versus 
 
 
 
The State & others  
(in C.P. 574/2019) 
The State  
(in C.P. 575/2019) 
 
…Respondent(s) 
 
 
 
For the Petitioner(s): 
Mr. Tariq Mehmood Abbasi, ASC 
 
(in both cases) 
 
Syed Rifaqat Hussain Shah, AOR 
 
 
 
 
For the State: 
Mr. Niazullah Niazi, 
Advocate General, I.C.T. 
 
along with Mubarak SHO Shahzad Town, 
Azhar, SI/I.O. 
 
Date of hearing: 
05.05.2020. 
 
JUDGMENT 
 
 
 
Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed, J.- Tasar Mehmood and 
Shahbaz  Ahmed, petitioners, along with two others trespassed into a 
private hospital managed by Dr. Yousaf Ali (PW-11), located within the 
limits of Police Station Shahzad Town Islamabad to commit robbery on 
26.11.2013 at 9:45 p.m; as the attendants on the reception resisted 
the intruders, they opened indiscriminate fire; Zahid Ali Khan  
(PW-10) survived the solitary gunshot, however, a comrade in crime, 
identified as Umair Shahzad fatally fell in the line of fire; in the wake of 
Criminal Petition Nos.574 & 575 of 2019 
2
anticlimax, they took to the heels along with the snatched articles. 
Information was laid with the police by the owner who resided upstairs 
in the same premises. Spot inspection includes seizure of human blood 
and casings as well as lead bullets, 28 in number, vide inventories of 
even date. As the investigation progressed, Tasar Mehmood, petitioner, 
was arrested on 6.2.2014 followed by Shahbaz Ahmed on 5.3.2014; 
they were identified by the injured in a test identification parade under 
a magisterial supervision held on 7.3.2014; subsequently, upon 
disclosures, they led to the recovery of pistols P-11 & P-7, forensically 
found wedded with the seized casings. Prosecution is clueless about 
the fourth accomplice till date. Petitioners were indicted for homicide 
as well as robbery before the learned Additional Sessions Judge-I (East) 
Islamabad; they claimed trial that resulted into their convictions vide 
judgment dated 28.11.2016; Tasar Mehmood petitioner was sentenced 
to imprisonment for life on both counts whereas Shahbaz Ahmed was 
acquitted from the charge of homicide, however, sentenced to 
imprisonment for life on coordinate charges with a direction to pay 
monetary compensation to the injured; they preferred appeals, during 
pendency whereof, the legal heirs of Umair Shahzad deceased 
compounded the offence of murder, in consequence whereof, Tasar 
Mehmood was acquitted from the said charge; the Islamabad High 
Court while maintaining remainder convictions reduced sentences of 
imprisonment for life to 10-years R.I. vide impugned judgment dated 
7.3.2019, vires whereof, are being assailed by both the convicts 
through separate petitions, being decided through this single 
judgment.   
2. 
 
It is argued that since the petitioners were not named in 
the crime report nor arrested at the spot, thus, there was no occasion 
for their conviction merely on the statement of a solitary witness who 
claimed to have identified them in a test identification parade, held in 
derogation to the principles/safeguards provided under the High Court 
Rules & Orders, otherwise inconsequential for lack of description of 
features as well as assignment of the roles respectively played by the 
culprits during the occurrence; absence of Mushtaq Hussain, 
Watchman, from the witness box has been referred to as a devastating 
blow to the credibility of prosecution case as, according to the learned 
counsel, his failure to testify would cast adverse inference within the 
contemplation of Article 129 (e) of the Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984. 
Criminal Petition Nos.574 & 575 of 2019 
3
Mr. Niazullah Khan Niazi, learned Advocate General Islamabad Capital 
Territory faithfully defended the impugned judgment.  
3. 
 
Heard. Record perused.  
 4. 
 
A promptitude intervened the events of fateful night; 
occurrence took place at 9:45 p.m., complaint is recorded 11:45 p.m. at 
the spot; Zahid Ali Khan (PW-10) is examined under a police docket in 
the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences; autopsy of the slain 
accomplice is carried out at 10:30 a.m. following day; none other than 
the deceased, identified through his CNIC, is arrayed by name in the 
crime report. Spot inspection confirmed the incident. Integrity of initial 
investigation is beyond doubt and it is through investigative process 
that the police reached out the petitioners; they were kept in judicial 
lock up and remitted into police custody only after they had been 
identified by the injured in the test identification parade. Weapons 
recovered pursuant to disclosures were forensically matched with the 
casings dispatched earlier than petitioners’ arrest. These formidable 
pieces of evidence were relied upon by the trial court to unhesitatingly 
return a guilty verdict. Composition of murder of co-accused by Tasar 
Mehmood in the High Court has been nothing less than a last straw in 
the episode. In this backdrop, criticism of alleged flaws in the test 
identification parade sounds a far cry. Reference to omission of 
assailants’ features and respective roles played by them during the 
occurrence is beside the point in circumstances. Article 22 of the 
Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984 provides mechanics to enable the 
witnesses to establish identity of unacquainted assailants, a dilemma 
increasingly confronting prosecution in detection of culprits in 
expanded urban neighbourhoods. For convenience of reference, it is 
reproduced below:- 
 
 “Facts necessary to explain or introduce relevant 
facts.—Facts necessary to explain or introduce a 
fact in issue or relevant fact, or which support or 
rebut an inference suggested by a fact in issue or 
relevant fact, or which establish the identity of 
anything or person whose identity is relevant, or 
fix the time or place at which any fact in issue or 
relevant fact happened, or which show the relation 
of parties by whom any such fact was transacted, 
are relevant in so far as they are necessary for 
that purpose.” 
  
Criminal Petition Nos.574 & 575 of 2019 
4
Juridical wisdom, legislated with ingenious brevity par excellence, is 
nonetheless widely spaced to meet diverse situations as calamities 
seldom come about under ideal or identical circumstances; same 
applies to the responses by those who encounter such situations as 
crisis impacts differently upon individuals’ faculties and nerves to 
sustain and endure themselves during the ordeal, therefore, it would 
be unrealistically inexpedient to apply dogmatic standards with 
empirical exactitude to settle the question of assailant’s identity. There 
may be situations where witnesses are expected to be more expressive 
and descriptive but there may well be contra situations as well. The 
underlying purpose behind High Court Rules and Orders, Volume III, 
Part-C, based upon a circular issued by the Punjab Government way 
back on 19th of December, 1936 is primarily to ensure that the accused 
confronting the witnesses in a test identification exercise is least 
embarrassed or handicapped. Similarly, 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.” 
 
The survey of above provision of law renders it abundantly clear that 
the process of test identification parade has to be essentially carried 
out, having regard to the exigencies of each case, in a fair and non 
collusive manner, free from the taints of prejudice; a contra claim must 
rest upon evidential basis; the exercise is not an immutable ritual, 
inconsequential non performance whereof, may cause failure of 
prosecution case, otherwise structured upon clean and probable 
evidence. In the present case, the assailants surprised the witnesses 
and soon thereafter started snatching the valuables; upon resistance, 
one of them resorted to firing; a colleague fell to death on spot at the 
hands of his own accomplice and as such their identification by the 
witnesses constituted valid and reliable proof to drive home the charge 
beyond reasonable doubt. The complainant or the witnesses in their 
statements did not point out specific features and as such they were 
not required to improve upon their case during the test identification 
Criminal Petition Nos.574 & 575 of 2019 
5
parade. An effective regime of administration of criminal justice has to 
be pivoted on a balance, correlating fair trial for an accused with a 
meaningful opportunity to the prosecution to drive home the charge on 
the strength of available evidence. Since corporal consequences are 
irreversible and freedom once forfeited cannot be restored or 
recompensed with retrospect, the Court must insist for “proof beyond 
doubt” to rule out possibility of error or hypothesis of innocence, 
nonetheless, at the same time, prosecution cannot be saddled to come 
forward with details hyper technical, artificial or illusory. Indictment 
structured on macro foundations of truthful evidence can sustain the 
charge. Evidence comprising natural witnesses, with dead body of a co-
accused, whose murder was subsequently compounded by no other 
than one of the petitioners himself squarely constitute proof beyond 
doubt. Absence of Mushtaq Hussain, Watchman from the witness box 
does not raise any adverse inference as the remainder of the witnesses 
were in place during the trial. Petitions fail. Leave declined.   
        
 
 
 
Judge 
 
 
 
 
 
Judge 
Islamabad, the 
5th May, 2020 
Not approved for reporting 
Azmat/-