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Wednesday July 23, 2025

SC issues detailed verdict in Khadija Siddiqui stabbing case

By Sohail Khan
January 30, 2019

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) Tuesday issued a detailed verdict in Khadija Siddiqui stabbing case and criticised the verdict of Lahore High Court (LHC) acquitting the accused.

The 16-page verdict, authored by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, held that the Lahore High Court didn’t examine the evidence recorded by the trial court while acquitting the accused, Shah Hussain.

“We have noticed that some downright misreading of the evidence had been committed by the High Court. The High Court had ignored many critical aspects of the case available in the evidence brought on the record,” says the detailed verdict.

The exercise of appreciation of evidence in this case by the High Court has, thus, been found by us to be laconic and misreading and non-reading of the record by the High Court has been found by us to have led the said Court into a serious error of judgment occasioning failure of justice and clamouring for interference in the matter by this Court, the verdict ruled.

A judgment of acquittal suffering from serious misreading or non-reading of evidence materially affecting the final outcome of the case is nothing short of being perverse and, hence, not immune from interference.

Apart from that the High Court ought to have appreciated that it was only seized of revision petitions and not an appeal and in exercise of its revisional jurisdiction the High Court ought to have confined itself to correctness, legality, regularity or propriety of the proceedings of the courts below rather than embarking upon a full-fledged reappraisal of the evidence, an exercise fit for appellate jurisdiction.

In the case in hand the trial and appellate courts had undertaken an exhaustive analysis of the evidence available on the record and had then concurred in their conclusion regarding guilt of respondent No. 1 having been proved beyond reasonable doubt.

In the absence of any error of law committed by the courts below and in the absence of any illegality, irregularity or impropriety committed by the courts below in the trial or hearing of the appeal the High Court ought to have been slow in interfering with the concurrent findings of fact recorded by the courts below.

We note with some concern that in the entire operative part of the impugned judgment passed by the High Court no discussion had taken place as to why the High Court had ignored or disbelieved the ocular account furnished by the minor and injured eyewitness namely Sofia Siddiqui (PW7), says the verdict.

The said injured victim was six years old and the incident had taken place just outside her school when her elder sister, the other injured victim, had gone to bring her back from the school.

The said minor injured victim had identified respondent No. 1 as the culprit on the first occasion that she got after the occurrence when respondent No. 1 had appeared before a Court for the purpose of seeking interim pre-arrest bail in connection with the present criminal case.

Even Riaz Ahmed complainant (PW5) had identified respondent No. 1 on that occasion and had straightaway informed the investigating officer that respondent No. 1 was the person who had launched the murderous assault on and had injured Khadija Siddiqui (PW6) and Sofia Siddiqui (PW7) a few days ago.

Sofia Siddiqui (PW7) had made her statement under section 161, Cr.P.C. on the very day of occurrence and it was suggested to her by the defence itself that she as well as her elder sister, i.e. Khadija Siddiqui (PW6) used to visit parks, hotels and cinema houses in the company of respondent No.1 and the defence itself had suggested to her that she knew respondent No. 1 since before the occurrence as respondent No. 1 used to visit the victims’ house. In this backdrop failure on the part of Sofia Siddiqui (PW7) to name respondent No. 1 straightaway but recognizing him at the spot and naming him as the sole culprit at the first opportunity becoming available to her Criminal Appeals No. 34- L and 35-L of 201815 after the occurrence did not detract from the overall strength of the case of the prosecution against respondent No. 1. Be that as it may, the High Court was not justified in completely ignoring the statement of the said injured eyewitness who had absolutely no reason to falsely implicate respondent No. 1 in a case of this nature.

The detailed verdict restored the sessions judge’s decision of March 2018, convicting and sentencing the accused for various offences and sent Shah Hussain jail again for five years.

For what has been discussed above these appeals are allowed, the impugned consolidated judgment passed by the High Court is set aside and the judgment passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Lahore on 30.03.2018 convicting and sentencing respondent No. 1 (Shah Hussain) for various offences is restored, the detailed verdict concluded.

The court ordered that the accused could be taken into custody and could be lodged in a prison so as to serve his remaining sentences.