LHC dismisses last statement of murdered man

Conviction on basis of victim’s statement set aside

LAHORE:

The Lahore High Court (LHC) has declined to accept as admissible evidence in a murder case a statement given before death by the victim, observing that conviction on the basis of the dying declaration is not legal.

The LHC Bahawalpur division bench headed by Justice Sardar Ahmed Naeem, after hearing the appeal of a convict handed down death sentence by the trial court in a murder case, set aside the order and acquitted him.

The bench observed that “excluding the dying declaration of the deceased, which was the foundation of the prosecution’s case, remaining evidence would not be sufficient to sustain conviction. We, therefore, hold that the prosecution has not been able to prove the charge against the appellant beyond reasonable doubt”.

The prosecution presented 10 witnesses before the trial court during the hearing of the case.

The appellant, Imam Bakhsh, had claimed in his statement recorded under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) that he had neither gone along with any other person on a motorbike to the place where the incident took place on August 26,2013, nor shot at the victim, as alleged.

He contended that the injured was not directly shifted from the alleged place of occurrence to the Hasilpur Tehsil Headquarters Hospital, nor he was conscious to make his statement as alleged by the prosecution.

He claimed that the alleged statement was a fabricated document maneuvered by the investigation officer (IO) at the behest of the brothers of the deceased, Irshad Hussain and Sajjad Hussain, in order to falsely involve him in the case.

“The deceased had sustained gunfire injuries at the hands of some unknown assailants in the night, after which his brothers first shifted him to the Vehari District Headquarters Hospital and thereafter took him to the Hasilpur THQ Hospital, where they maneuvered the case,” he alleged.

The counsel for the appellant argued that the case of the prosecution was entirely based on the statement of the injured man, which was neither proved nor supported by the prosecution witnesses or the circumstances.

He contended that the conviction announced on the basis of the ying declaration by the trial court could not be sustained.

A deputy prosecutor general opposed the appeal, contending that the occurrence was promptly reported to police by the injured, which excluded the possibility of any deliberation, and the appellant had been accused of a specific role.

The lawyer added that even if the corroborative pieces of evidence were excluded from consideration, the prosecution had proved the dying declaration of the deceased, thus the peal deserved dismissal.

The court declared in the judgment that it was a principle of criminal jurisprudence that the dying declaration by itself was not strong evidence because of being not tested by cross-examination.

It observed that the only reason for accepting such a statement was that a person apprehending death due to injury was ordinarily not expected to resort to falsehood.

“To believe or disbelieve the dying declaration, thus, is left to the ordinary human judgement. However, the courts always insist upon strong, independent and reliable corroborative evidence for the sake of safe dispensation of justice.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 27^th, 2022.