• Guidelines abscondence alone can’t be handled as proof of guilt
• Acquits homicide convict after 20 years
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Courtroom acquitted a homicide convict who had been sentenced to life imprisonment, whereas citing the well-recognized precept that it’s higher to err in acquittal than in conviction.
“This precept can be deeply rooted in Islamic jurisprudence, which greater than fourteen centuries in the past laid down the salutary maxim that it’s higher to acquit ten responsible individuals than to convict one harmless particular person,” noticed Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim, a member of a two-judge bench, headed by Justice Muhammad Hashim Kakar.
The court docket had taken up an attraction filed by Muhammad Iqbal, difficult the June 18, 2025 choice of the Sindh Excessive Courtroom (SHC), which had upheld his sentence.
In his eight-page judgment, Justice Ibrahim noticed that cheap doubt within the thoughts of a prudent particular person was enough to entitle an accused to the advantage of doubt as a matter of proper and never grace. “This manifestation additionally finds point out within the precept of good thing about doubt, which is invariably prolonged in favor of the accused to make sure the secure and simply administration of felony justice,” it added.
Muhammad Iqbal was convicted beneath Part 302(b) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) by the Further Classes Decide-II, Karachi West, on Jan 26, 2024, for the homicide of Jameel Khan.
The incident allegedly occurred on April 29, 2006. Iqbal was sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment together with compensation of Rs500,000 payable to the authorized heirs of the deceased.
The conviction was upheld by the SHC on June 18, 2025. Iqbal had remained at massive for round 14 years earlier than his arrest on Oct 27, 2021.
Justice Ibrahim noticed that the findings recorded by the SHC didn’t seem like legally sustainable. The SHC had held that the petitioner’s conduct in remaining at massive for 14 years after the homicide, earlier than being arrested on Oct 27, 2021, mirrored, within the absence of any rationalization, a responsible conscience.
Firstly, the judgment famous that the petitioner was initially a resident of Bara, Khyber district (erstwhile Fata), and there was nothing on document to determine that proceedings beneath Sections 204 (summons or warrant), 87 (proclamation in opposition to an absconder) and 88 (attachment of property of an absconder) of the Felony Process Code (CrPC) have been ever initiated or lawfully pursued in opposition to him throughout the alleged interval of abscondence.
Secondly, it was an admitted place that no particular query relating to the alleged abscondence was put to the petitioner-convict in his assertion recorded beneath Part 342 of the CrPC.
“It’s by now a settled precept of legislation that any piece of proof or circumstance not put to an accused in his assertion beneath Part 342, CrPC can’t be used in opposition to him,” the judgment defined.
Thirdly, the judgment noticed that an accused might abscond for a wide range of causes, rightly or wrongly, together with worry of arrest or police harassment.
“Mere abscondence, subsequently, is just not conclusive proof of guilt. It’s trite legislation that abscondence is, at greatest, a corroborative piece of proof and can’t by itself be handled as substantive proof to maintain a conviction,” the judgment said.
Such corroborative proof, it added, might solely be thought of in assist of different dependable proof and never in isolation. The place the ocular account furnished by the prosecution is discovered to be uncertain or unworthy of reliance, mere abscondence of the accused wouldn’t be enough to maintain a conviction.
Whereas concluding, the SC noticed that, in view of the fabric contradictions and inherent discrepancies within the prosecution’s proof, it was persuaded to carry that the prosecution had miserably didn’t show its case in opposition to the petitioner past cheap doubt. “The courts beneath additionally fell into patent error in recording the conviction of the petitioner by disregarding and overlooking such materials infirmities within the prosecution case,” the judgment stated, including that the prosecution’s proof was replete with doubts.
“It’s by now a well-settled precept of felony jurisprudence that even a single circumstance creating cheap doubt within the prosecution case entitles an accused to acquittal.”
Consequently, the SC transformed the petition into an attraction and put aside the conviction and sentence awarded to the appellant by the decrease courts. The court docket additionally ordered the acquittal of the appellant and directed that he be launched forthwith if not required in some other case.
Printed in Daybreak, Could tenth, 2026
