IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN 
(Appellate Jurisdiction) 
 
 
 
PRESENT: 
Mr. Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa 
Mr. Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany 
Mr. Justice Qazi Faez Isa 
 
 
Criminal Appeal No. 248 of 2009 
(Against the judgment dated 20.05.2009 passed by the Peshawar 
High Court, Abbottabad Bench in Criminal Revision No. 1 of 2008) 
 
 
Gulraiz 
…Appellants 
 
 
 
 
 
 
versus 
 
The State, etc. 
 
  
 
 
     …Respondents 
                  
             
 
 
For the appellant:  
 
Mr. Tariq Mehmood, Sr. ASC  
Mr. Ghulam Mustafa Khan Swati, 
ASC 
 
For the State: 
Mr. Muhammad Aslam Ghumman, 
ASC 
 
For the complainant: 
Malik Muhammad Kabir, ASC 
 
Date of hearing: 
 
 
04.06.2015  
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT 
 
Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, J.: We have heard the learned 
counsel for the parties at some length and have gone through the 
relevant record of the case with their assistance.  
 
2. 
The appellant had been sentenced to death by the learned 
trial court and his sentence of death had been confirmed by the 
High Court whereafter an appeal filed by the appellant was 
Criminal Appeal No. 248 of 2009 
 
2
dismissed by this Court on 13.04.2005 and a review petition filed 
by the appellant was subsequently dismissed by this Court on 
23.01.2007. The impugned judgment passed by the High Court 
shows that a mercy petition filed by the appellant has also been 
turned down by the President of Pakistan. After having exhausted 
all his judicial and executive remedies the appellant filed an 
application before the learned trial court seeking reduction of his 
sentence on the basis of a compromise with the widow of Abdul 
Jamil deceased but admittedly the said compromise was a partial 
compromise because the other heirs of the deceased had not 
waived or compounded the offence. The learned trial court 
dismissed the above mentioned application submitted by the 
appellant and later on a revision petition filed by the appellant 
before the High Court was also dismissed. Hence, the present 
appeal by leave of this Court granted on 04.06.2009. 
 
3. 
It has already been declared by a Larger Bench of this Court 
in the case of Zahid Rehman v. The State (PLD 2015 SC 77) that a 
partial compromise between a convict and some of the heirs of the 
deceased cannot entail acquittal of the convict in a case of Ta’zir as 
by virtue of the provisions of subsection (2) of section 345, Cr.P.C. 
all the heirs of the deceased must enter into a compromise with a 
convict if such compromise is to have the effect contemplated by 
subsection (6) of section 345, Cr.P.C. The issue as to whether a 
partial compromise may provide a valid basis for reduction of a 
sentence of death to that of imprisonment for life came up for 
consideration before this Court in the case of Abdul Ghaffar v. The 
State (Criminal Appeal No. 589 of 2009 decided on 23.04.2015) 
and it had been held by this Court as follows: 
 
“8. 
Once it is established that the offence has been committed 
by the accused the appropriate sentence is awarded to him/her, 
which in respect of qatl-i-amd as ta’zir could be either death or 
imprisonment for life. The section requires that the “facts and 
circumstances of the case” be considered in determining the 
appropriate sentence. A compromise with one or more of the heirs 
of the victim would in our opinion be amongst the facts and 
circumstances of the case that require to be taken into account in 
determining the quantum of punishment, but that in itself would 
Criminal Appeal No. 248 of 2009 
 
3
not be the conclusive factor as all the facts and circumstance of 
the case have to be considered. Merely because an heir has 
compromised with the convict would not automatically result in 
the imposition of the lesser punishment of imprisonment for life.  
 
9. 
That having decided that a compromise with an heir of the 
victim may be a factor in determining the quantum of 
punishment we now proceed to consider whether in the facts and 
circumstances of each of these cases the sentences of death 
imposed by the trial court and which were upheld and confirmed 
by the High court should be reduced to imprisonment for life.”  
 
Keeping in view the law declared by this Court in the above 
mentioned cases we have attended to the facts and circumstances 
of the present criminal case and have observed that the appellant 
had acted in a cruel and brutal manner and his conduct was 
nothing short of being callous because he and his co-accused had 
murdered one person and had injured three others only when the 
deceased had prompted a Qari during the progress of Traveeh 
prayers in the holy month of Ramzan which prompting had been 
taken ill by the appellant. The place of occurrence was the 
courtyard of a mosque. In the absence of any background of ill-will 
or bitterness against the deceased and the injured victims the 
appellant had no justifiable reason to do what he did, meaning 
thereby that the appellant is a desperate person and it may be 
hazardous to let him loose on the society. All the facts and 
circumstances of the case which could arguably point towards 
mitigation of the appellant’s sentence had failed to find favour with 
this Court when his appeal and review petition had been dismissed 
and his sentence of death had been maintained. The only fresh 
factor in this regard is the stated compromise between the 
appellant and the widow of the deceased which widow has already 
remarried and she had statedly received a sum of Rs. 4,60,000/- 
from the appellant on her own behalf as well as on behalf of a 
minor daughter of the deceased for the purposes of entering into a 
compromise. It is not disputed before us that both the parents of 
the deceased have resolutely refused to affect any compromise with 
the appellant so far. In the above mentioned peculiar background 
we have not found the stated partial compromise to be furnishing a 
Criminal Appeal No. 248 of 2009 
 
4
valid basis for reduction of the appellant’s sentence of death to 
imprisonment for life. This appeal is, therefore, dismissed.  
  
 
 
Judge 
 
 
Judge 
 
 
Judge 
Islamabad 
04.06.2015 
Approved for reporting.  
 
Arif 
