ISLAMABAD: In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Courtroom dominated on Monday that “vitriolage” (acid assault) is an offense extra heinous than murder.
The ruling got here after Abdul Manan, convicted for throwing acid on a younger girl in Faisalabad, appealed towards a 2022 Lahore Excessive Courtroom (LHC) order.
The LHC had upheld an Anti-Terrorism Courtroom (ATC) verdict sentencing him to life imprisonment together with a superb of Rs1 million.
Justice Muhammad Hashim Khan Kakar, heading a three-judge bench consisting of Justice Salahuddin Panhwar and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim, upheld the LHC order.
The ruling comes solely days after an acid assault on a feminine physician in Quetta’s Civil Hospital. Following the assault on 29-year-old Mahnoor Nasir, docs in Quetta went on strike, demanding a radical investigation.
“In contrast to loss of life, which consumes its sufferer solely as soon as, the sufferer of an acid assault is relegated to a dwelling loss of life, the place they’re compelled to endure the agony of their trauma and the degradation of their bodily self every day,” noticed Justice Kakar in a 14-page strongly worded judgment he authored.
Within the court docket ruling, federal and provincial governments have been additionally really useful to think about accommodating acid assault victims underneath incapacity quotas together with enactment and enforcement of specialised laws for institution of a Nationwide Acid Survivors’ Rehabilitation Fund.
The ruling added that such a statutory fund ought to present complete medical protection for intensive reconstructive surgical procedures and specialised bodily remedy.
The fund also needs to present necessary entry to skilled trauma counseling, psychotherapy and psychiatric look after psychological and social rehabilitation.
“The perpetrator’s goal just isn’t merely to kill, however to extinguish the sufferer’s soul, leaving the dwelling corpse as a everlasting reminder of their depravity,” Justice Kakar mentioned.
The apex court docket additionally really useful a compulsory month-to-month stipend for survivors who, because of the nature of their accidents or ongoing medical situations, are rendered incapable of monetary self-support.
Justice Kakar additionally steered the formulation of nationwide rehabilitation tips as a standardized framework guaranteeing gratuitous, lifelong medical and psychological well being therapy throughout all state-mandated and personal medical amenities by means of the fund.
He additional noticed that acid violence is a software of patriarchal dominance. “Previously, such incidents have occurred following rejection of marriage proposals or sexual advances, in addition to dowry disputes.”
The ruling added that acid violence is used to inflict a social loss of life upon girls by destroying their bodily id.
The first deterrent towards such depravity lies in a twin technique of rigorous criminalisation adopted by stringent regulation of corrosive substances, Justice Kakar noticed, citing a variety of examples from overseas jurisdictions resembling Bangladesh and Cambodia.
The primary important step in direction of eradication is the explicit criminalization of the act itself, he added.
The judgment additionally highlighted that the eradication of acid violence was inextricably linked to restrictions on entry to corrosive substances.
Whereas the legislative amendments of 2011 served to criminalize acid violence with the severity it warrants, the persistence of such atrocities reveals that penal sanctions alone are inadequate to deal with the basis of the issue, Justice Kakar noticed.
“So long as corrosive substances stay simply obtainable, the deterrent impact of penal penalties might be perpetually undermined.”
On this context, the Punjab Acid Management Act 2025 represents a watershed second in provincial jurisprudence. Justice Kakar cited it for example of a shift from post-occurrence punishment to pre-emptive regulation, noting that the Act mandates a rigorous licensing regime and categorically prohibits the sale of acid to people underneath the age of 18.
“It’s our sanguine expectation that the rigorous enforcement of such specialised regulatory regimes will successfully dismantle the accessibility of those deadly devices, thereby serving as a sturdy bulwark to curb and ultimately eradicate this heinous offense from our social cloth,” Justice Kakar emphasised.
He added that the ordeal of an acid assault survivor doesn’t finish with the conclusion of the prison trial. As a substitute, it marks the start of a grueling, lifelong journey of medical intervention.
Survivors are ceaselessly subjected to an exhaustive sequence of reconstructive surgical procedures and specialised procedures that aren’t solely bodily agonizing but in addition financially prohibitive, rendering important healthcare inaccessible to nearly all of victims, the judgment famous.
Citing the Asian Human Rights Fee, the judgment mentioned the devastating affect of acid violence in Pakistan was exemplified by survivors resembling Irum Saeed and Memuna Khan, who underwent 25 and 21 reconstructive surgical procedures respectively following assaults triggered by marital rejection and inter-family disputes.
Justice Kakar added that regardless of current legal guidelines, their goal was defeated if implementation and enforcement remained weak, as evidenced by recurring incidents throughout the nation.
The SC additionally strongly really useful that the excessive courts actively monitor and make sure that, in circumstances of vitriolage, statutory timelines supplied underneath related legal guidelines for the completion of trials are strictly adhered to.
The prime intent of the legislature is to make sure swift adjudication and stop secondary victimisation, the judgment added.
Vitriolage is an offense deeply rooted in gender-based violence, deep-seated misogyny and patriarchal aggression, the judgment mentioned.
The Supreme Courtroom additionally really useful that the federal and all provincial governments impose an entire ban on the sale of acid to non-public people.
For authorized acid gross sales, the court docket steered a centralized digital system ruled and monitored by the related authorities in actual time.
Underneath this technique, entities intending to buy acid should apply by means of prescribed digital types, disclosing the aim of buy and the title and particulars of the purchaser, together with {a photograph} and biometric thumb impression.
Such a real-time system will fully eradicate guide record-keeping and allow the commerce to be managed with absolute transparency, the ruling added.
The apex court docket judgment was forwarded to all Excessive Courts and related departments of the federal and provincial governments.
Case history
On September 4, 2019, the accused threw sulfuric acid on the victim’s face while she was cooking in the kitchen of her home. The victim sustained extensive burns on her face, chest, back, left leg and foot, as well as “complete destruction of the left ear”, court documents state.
The victim was examined on January 16, 2020, during trial proceedings. At the time, “she was unable to recline, move or walk”, according to court documents.
The victim has been bedridden since the incident.
Abdul Manan denied the allegations but failed to provide evidence in his defense. At the time of the incident, he was a minor, with court documents stating his age as 17-18.
The petitioner’s lawyer requested leniency owing to his young age, while the prosecutor argued that “age cannot be a shield for such barbaric acts”.
On February 1, 2020, the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Faisalabad sentenced the accused to life imprisonment along with a fine of Rs1 million to be paid to the victim.
Following an appeal, the Lahore High Court (LHC) upheld the ATC’s ruling on November 21, 2022.
