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Criminal Revision Petition No.1 of 1988, decided on 8th October, 1988.

(On appeal from the order of the Azad Kashmir Shariat Court dated 31-1-1988 in Criminal Miscellaneous No. 2 of 1988).

---S. 439--Revision (criminal)--Scope. In revision petitions unless the orders are not shown to be perverse or illegal, they do not call for interference. The scope of the revision petitions is very limited. It does not have that wide scope of appeals. Court is slow to disturb the orders in revision if they do not suffer from such an illegality as to make them perverse or manifestly unjust. The revisional jurisdiction should be exercised only in exceptional cases where the interest of public justice requires interference for the correction of manifest illegality or the prevention of gross miscarriage of justice. This jurisdiction should not be ordinarily invoked or used merely because the lower Courts have taken a wrong view of the law.

Abdur Rashid Abbasi for Petitioner.

Ch. Muhammad Riaz Akhtar for Respondents.

--This revision petition, moved by the petitioner, seeks reversal of the order passed by a learned single Judge of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Shariat Court on 31-1-1988 where under the learned Judge declined to accept the appeal moved by the petitioner, which was meant to assail the order of the District Criminal Court dated 1-10-1987. The learned District Criminal Court refused further opportunity to the petitioner for recording the evidence of Muhammad Yaqub and Saghir and closed their evidence. This was done in a murder case.

2. The two witnesses named above were cited as prosecution witnesses but despite numerous opportunities, the prosecution failed to produce and examine them. On examination of the file, we find that on certain occasions the learned Public Prosecutor sought adjournments to produce these witnesses on his own responsibility, as the witnesses were outride the jurisdiction of the Court, but despite this the prosecution failed to examine them. On the above premises, the learned Judge in the Shariat Court declined to disturb the order of the District Criminal Court and disallowed the appeal. It would be profitable to reproduce the relevant part of the impugned judgment in extenso. It reads as under:-

"In the present case, the prosecution witness, Muhammad Yaqub was present in the Court on 23-7-1987 but the learned Public Prosecutor decided not to produce him as a witness. In this view of the matter, the trial Court passed an order on his own responsibility. On 9-10-1986, again when the case came up for. evidence, .this witness was not produced and PW-8 Saghir was reported to have gone to England. The Court, therefore, ordered that they be produced by the prosecution on their own responsibility. From the interim orders that followed, it appeared that even warrants sometime bailable and on other occasions non-bailable were issued but the prosecution did not take any step to see that these are executed. Again many opportunities were allowed to produce these witnesses. Even today, the learned Public Prosecutor states that PW-6, Muhammad Yaqub is not available and according to him he is somewhere in Karachi whereas Saghir PW is stated to be in England.

Considering the circumstances, I have no doubt in my mind that the impugned order was perfectly justified. It suffers from no infirmity nor could it be called as unjust or inequitable."

The above observation, made by the learned Judge, would show that the reasoning advanced by the learned Judge in the Shariat Court in closing the evidence of both the witnesses is sound and convincing and does not suffer from any legal defect. Since the finding does not suffer from any illegality or infirmity, we feel advised not to disturb the order. In revision petitions unless the orders are not shown to be perverse or illegal, they do not call far our interference. The scope of the revision petitions is very limited. It does not have that wide scope of appeals. This Court is slow to disturb the orders in revision if they do not suffer from such an illegality as to make them perverse or manifestly unjust. The revisional jurisdiction should be exercised only in exceptional cases where the interest of public justice requires interference for the correction of manifest illegality or the prevention of gross miscarriage of justice. This jurisdiction should not be ordinarily invoked or used merely because the lower Courts have taken a wrong view of the law.

For the above-stated reasons we do not see any force in this revision petition which is dismissed hereby.

M.B.A./225/S.C.A. Petition dismissed.

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