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Criminal Petition for Special Leave to Appeal No. 40‑R(S) of 1983, decided on 22nd October, 1983.

(On appeal from the judgment of Federal Shariat Court, dated 21st September, 1983 in Criminal Appeal No. 99/L of 1983).

----Art. 203‑F (2‑B) read with Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance (VII of 1979), S. 10(3)‑‑Conviction for offence of Zina ‑Value and strength of evidence ‑ No infirmity, legal or otherwise, in appreciation of evidence found‑‑Leave to appeal refused.

Fazal Ellahi Siddiqui, Advocate and Khan Imtiaz Muhammad Khan, Advocate‑on‑Record for Petitioner.

Nemo for the State

Date of hearing : 22nd October, 1983.

Leave to appeal has been sought from judgment dated 21‑9‑1983 of the Federal Shariat Court, whereby petitioner's appeal against conviction and sentence under section 10(3) of the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance, 1979, was dismissed.

The prosecution case as summed up in the impugned judgment is that Mst. Parveen Akhtar the victim of the offence was a student of the local village school and Mst. Surriya wife of appellant was her class teacher. Mst. Surriya used to send Parveen Akhtar to go and do domestic chores for her at her house where the appellant used to be present alone: if the girl did not obey her the teacher used to give her a beating. When she went there the first time during the month of Jeth' the appellant caught hold of her, took her inside a room and forcibly, in spite of the girl not consenting, committed zina with her. He threatened that if she informed her parents he would kill her. She, therefore, did not disclose the facts to any one due to fear. Even after she left the school, on the request of Mst. Surriya whenever she visited the house to do household work the appellant used to commit zina with her and she became pregnant. The appellant assured her that he would arrange for abortion and she remained silent. On 14‑2‑1980 at about 4 p. m. Parveen gave birth to a baby daughter at the house of her parents.

Abdul Ghani who is son of s1ster of Sadar Din, father of Parveen and who works at the Kiln of Ali Ahmad was informed about Parveen an unmarried grit giving birth to a baby. He took Ali Muhammad and Sardar Muhammad local respectable to the house of his maternal uncle and on inquiry Parveen Akbtar stated the facts to them, further stating that when she had become pregnant she had informed her teacher Mst. Surriya who had. promised to do something about it and had further asked Parveen not to inform any other person.. The appellant had also told her that be would arrange for abortion of she continued to allow him to have sexual intercourse.

Abdul Ghani went to Police Station Gojra and placed the information before the police on 14‑2‑1980.

At the joint trial of the petitioner and Mst. Parveen evidence was led extra judicial confession of the petitioner in the depositions of Farzand Ali a close relation of Mat. Parveen and Bagh Ali an independent witness, the statement of Mst. Parveen recorded under section 164, Cr. P. C. the circumstances about the birth of the illegitimate child the statement of Mst. Parveen made before Farzand Ali and Bagh Ali, soon after the birth of the illegitimate child, accusing the petitioner of the offence her similar statement to several other persons including the first informant and lastly the circumstances due to which she was found innocent and acquitted of the charge.

Learned counsel for the petitioner has read the relevant parts of the evidence. He vehemently argued that the petitioner has been falsely implicated as a scapegoat for the real culprit namely Muhammad Shafi to whom Mst. Parveen was betrothed and who was residing with her parents in the, same house where she resided and, that both had opportunity to indulge in sex, before marriage. He pointed out certain features in the evidence which he contended were serious infirmities in the prosecution case. It has also been argued that the statement made by Mst. Parveen under section 164, Cr. P. C. has been illegally used as evidence against the petitioner and so also her statement recorded under section 342, Cr. P. C.

The main stay of the prosecution case in this case is the extra judicial confession of the petitioner before two P. Ws. and the attending circumstances leading up to his arrest as also, the conduct together with the explanatory statement made by Mst. Parveen, before the reg1stration of the case spontaneously accusing the petitioner of the crime. In that view of the matter, her statements recorded under sections 164 and 342, Cr. P. C. do not either change the prosecution version or its strength. The legal argument of the learned counsel raised in this behalf is thus of no avail to the petitioner in sofar as .the proof of his guilt through other material is concerned.

We after hearing him at some length on the strength and value of the evidence do not find any infirmity, legal or otherwise, in the appreciation thereof: This petition has no force and is dismissed.

S.Q Petition dismissed.

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