SC moved against Christian couple’s acquittal

A petitioner has challenged a Lahore High Court (LHC) order to acquit a Christian couple languishing in jail for years over blasphemy charges and contended that the LHC drew a wrong conclusion which resulted in a "gross miscarriage" of justice.

A trial court in Toba Tek Singh on April 4, 2014 sentence Shafqat Masih and his wife Shagufta Kausar to death under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) read with Section 34 for sending blasphemous messages through their mobile phones.

However, an LHC division bench – comprising Justice Shahbaz Ali Rizvi and Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh –on June 3 acquitted the couple after the prosecution “failed to establish the case beyond doubt”.

Read LHC acquits Christian couple in blasphemy case after 8 years in jail

Senior advocate Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhary has now challenged the LHC order by filing an appeal in the Supreme Court Lahore Registry. According to the appeal, the LHC’s bench "failed to appreciate the facts and law of the case in their true perspective and drew a wrong conclusion".

“The observation of the LHC’s division bench to the effect that ‘the appellants can be convicted only if the prosecution establishes that the handset (phone) belonged to them or was in their use and they authored and sent the text is a far-fetched imagination going much below the ground realities.”

It said the division bench did not mention, discuss or distinguish the precedent laws produced during arguments from the complainant side, adding that the evidence of judicial confession was important and the best evidence in the eye of law.

“[This is so] because Muhammad Nasir Siyal, superintendent of police (PW-11) before whom firstly the accused had confessed his guilt, had taken him to the magistrate immediately, where again confession was recorded …and it was not proved from any document that the said confession was not voluntarily.”

The appeal said while deciding the criminal appeal against conviction of the culprits after a full-fledged trial, there was no occasion or justification for the division bench to embark upon "theoretical and academic discussion" with reference to Articles 4, 9,10, and 10-A of the Constitution.

“The important thing is that all laws are made and implemented for public good and advancement of justice, therefore, punishment of the criminals is of equal importance."

“In a case where the facts, circumstances and evidence on record prove guilt of the accused beyond any shadow of doubt, punishment of the culprits becomes quite inevitable for the simple reason that to let the criminal escort free, means to punish the whole society,” it added.

The case
Complainant Muhamad Hussain on July 18, 2013 was offering prayer in a mosque when he received a message on his phone. When he checked the phone he found that it was a sacrilegious text from an unknown mobile number.

The complainant showed these messages to one Khalid Maqsood and Muhammad Shabbir and others. The complainant obtained prints of these blasphemous SMS and went to the office of Sajjad Asghar Khokhar for initiating legal proceedings against the suspects.

He was still there when he received five more SMS from the aforesaid number with the same derogatory contents. He showed them to Sajjad Ashgar who called the sender from his phone to know who the person was but nobody picked up the phone.  After that, the police registered a case and arrested the accused for alleged blasphemy.