Tayyaba torture case: Court increases sentence of judge, wife to three years

Court also dismissed an appeal challenging conviction of former judge, his wife

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court dismissed an appeal challenging conviction of a former judge and his wife and enhanced their sentence in the juvenile housemaid’s torture case.

IHC's division bench comprising Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Minagul Hassan Aurangzeb dismissed the former Additional District & Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Raja Khurram Ali Khan and his wife Maheen Zafar’s application challenging conviction and sentence. Instead, the division bench has enhanced the sentence from one year to three years.

“[We] uphold the conviction of Raja Khurram Ali Khan and Ms Maheen Zafar under section 328 A and enhance the sentence to simple imprisonment of three years each along with payment of fine of Rs.50,000,” the bench stated in the order.



The court has also convicted the couple under section 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and sentenced to simple imprisonment of six months each. In addition, the court has convicted Maheen Zafar under sections 337 A(i) and 337 F(i) of PPC and ordered to pay Rs500,000 to the victim child.

The sentences will run concurrently. Following the judgment, the judge was taken into custody and shifted to jail.

“There can be no compensation in monetary terms for the anguish suffered by the victim, an innocent, helpless and vulnerable child, but we feel that an amount of Rs. 500,000 … may be a reasonable symbolic payment as 'daman' to Tayyaba Bibi as compensation for the agony which she had to suffer,” the judgment read.

The bench has held Maheen Zafar liable for payment of daman under sections 337 A(i) and 337 F (i) of PPC.

While parting with the judgment, IHC’s judges have expressed their “observations regarding the failure of the criminal justice system in protecting the most weak and vulnerable members of the society.”

While referring to the Suo Moto notice of the Supreme Court in the case, the bench observed, “it appears that only then the system started functioning for this victim of neglect, inhuman treatment and the worst form of abuse” as a medical board was thereafter constituted and proper investigations ensued.

“Without the publicity on the social and electronic media ultimately leading to the notice taken by the august Supreme Court,” the order read, “the criminal justice system was not responding to the plight of a battered and helpless child.”

The court further added that “this apparent collapse of the criminal justice system for the weak and vulnerable segments of the society and its efficacy for the privileged raise serious questions regarding rule of law."

Moreover, it read, there should have been no need for suo moto notice for making the criminal justice system functional for a battered child regardless to the person accused of having committed an offence.

In addition, the court has expressed displeasure over Inspector Khalid Mehmood Awan for not fulfill his obligations by putting the legal process into motion when he got info and received the heart wrenching photographs of the injured child on 28.12.2016.

The inspector was forced to move in the morning of 29.12.2016, after an inquiry ordered by the IHC’s chief justice and the wide publicity of the images of the injured child on the social and electronic media.

He called Raja Khurram Ali Khan, picked up the child but instead of rushing the child to the hospital, he took her for the recording of her video statement in the presence of some woman who kept interjecting.

“The traumatized, battered and frightened child was asked leading questions and the interjections by some lady made it obvious that desired results favouring the Appellants were intended to be obtained,” the court noted.

Awan then accompanied the child to the hospital and in his presence she repeated the same facts which were recorded at some undisclosed location. However, the order read, the child narrated different facts when she came before Nisha Ishtiak, who reduced it into writing and it led to FIR.

“The Inspector General is also expected to take urgent and appropriate measures to ensure that professional officers, specially trained to deal with victims who are children, are entrusted with cases relating to them,” the court expressed while directing the IG to probe the role of Awan.

Previously, IHC’s single bench comprising Justice Aamer Farooq had held the couple guilty of harming, neglecting and abandoning the juvenile housemaid employed at judge’s residence in the capital.

On April 17, Justice Farooq had sentenced the couple to serve one year in prison and fined Rs50,000 each under Section 328-A of  the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). The couple, however, could not be arrested as they had obtained bail couple of hours after their conviction against the surety of Rs50,000 each.

In the appeal, the couple through their counsel Raja Rizwan Abbasi and Raja Farooq Haider requested the court to set aside the judgment of April 17 on grounds that conviction to the extent of section 328-A of Pakistan Penal Code is based upon speculation, presumption, surmises, conjectures and mens-rea and actus-rea of the section can’t be presumed by the court.

The case had grabbed the country’s attention in December 2016 when the judge and his wife were booked and were later been charged for allegedly assaulting, confining, ill-treating, neglecting, abandoning, harming and injuring the minor housemaid.

They have been accused of keeping the girl in wrongful confinement, burning her hand, beating her with a ladle, detaining her in a storeroom, and threatening her with even worse. The couple had pleaded ‘not guilty’ after they were indicted and stood trial.



Previously, an IHC’s bench had held the couple guilty of harming, neglecting and abandoning the juvenile housemaid employed at the judge’s residence in the capital.

On April 17, Justice Farooq had sentenced the couple to serve one year in prison and fined Rs50,000 each under Section 328-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). The couple, however, could not be arrested as they immediately obtained after their conviction against a surety of Rs50,000 each.

In the appeal, the couple through their counsel Raja Rizwan Abbasi and Raja Farooq Haider requested the court to set aside the judgment of April 17 on grounds that conviction to the extent of section 328-A of Pakistan Penal Code is based upon speculation, presumption, surmises, conjectures and mens-rea and actus-rea of the section can’t be presumed by the court.