LHC rejects district court's use of evidence from other FIRs

The Lahore High Court (LHC) has ruled that a case must be decided based on the cogent and substantial evidence available in the record of the case in hand, rather than relying on facts or materials from other already registered cases—unless those facts are formally brought on record in accordance with the law.

The ruling came from Justice Syed Shahbaz Ali Rizvi while setting aside a trial court's order. The district court judge had dismissed a private complaint filed by a woman, citing facts from other connected cases that were not part of the evidence in the case before it.

“The district court, while considering the facts of other connected cases not available in evidence of the case in hand, has exceeded its jurisdiction,” Justice Rizvi observed.

Justice Rizvi noted that the witnesses (the petitioner woman and her husband) consistently narrated the events that allegedly took place on April 24, 2023. The facts presented by them, prima facie, found support in the medico-legal examination certificate, postmortem examination certificate, and the application filed by the petitioner to the Station House Officer (SHO).

At this stage, the district court was expected to make its decision based solely on the facts provided by the witnesses and the evidence brought forward through the three documents submitted by the petitioner. This evidence, according to the LHC, was sufficient to require the issuance of a process against the proposed accused persons under Section 204 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898.

Justice Rizvi directed the trial court to issue process against the respondents and proceed with the trial in due course of law. He emphasised that the facts of other connected cases, known to the court, should not be considered in deciding the present case unless they were formally introduced into the record in accordance with the law.

Additionally, the LHC noted that the petitioner woman had filed the private complaint on February 20, 2024. After recording the cursory statement of the petitioner and injured witness Iftikhar Ahmad, the evidence was closed by the petitioner, and the complaint was set for arguments on April 15, 2024.

The impugned order revealed that, besides the statements of the witnesses, the petitioner had also tendered an application to the SHO for the registration of an FIR, along with an attested copy of the medico-legal examination certificate of injured Iftikhar Ahmad and the postmortem examination report of the deceased. However, the district court discussed facts that were not available in the case’s record.

It also transpired that the district court allowed the respondent, Muhammad Usman (the complainant in FIR No 756/23), to contest the complaint without formally summoning him. It is worth noting that the presence of the respondent’s counsel was not marked in the impugned order, whereas the presence of the petitioner woman’s counsel was.

According to case details, FIR 756/23 was registered under Sections 302, 324, and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) at PS Mansoorabad, Faisalabad, with Ahmad, the petitioner woman’s husband, as the principal accused.

The petitioner had sought to file a counter case, in the form of a cross-version, against the complainant of the FIR. However, the counsel of Usman informed the court that the trial in the FIR case was already in progress. The woman had also filed an application in the district court under Section 22-A/22-B of the CrPC for recording her cross-version in FIR No 756/23, but it was dismissed.

Although accused Ahmad had been injured during the incident and a medico-legal report had been submitted, he was declared guilty during the investigation. Furthermore, the version presented by the woman petitioner had been rejected by the district court.

As the matter had already been thoroughly investigated, with a challan against the accused Ahmad submitted and the trial in progress, the court viewed this complaint as an attempt to file a counter case against the complainant party in FIR No 756/23.