IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN 
(Appellate Jurisdiction) 
 
 
 
PRESENT: 
Mr. Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa 
Mr. Justice Dost Muhammad Khan 
Mr. Justice Sardar Tariq Masood 
 
 
Criminal Appeal No. 315 of 2012 
(Against the judgment dated 29.12.2011 passed by the High Court 
of Balochistan, Quetta in Criminal Jail Appeal No. 11 of 2011 and 
Murder Reference No. 06 of 2011) 
 
 
 
Nasrullah alias Nasro 
…Appellant 
 
 
 
 
 
 
versus 
 
The State 
 
     …Respondent 
                
 
 
For the appellant: 
Malik 
Shakeel-ur-Rehman 
Khan, 
ASC 
 
For the complainant: 
 
Mr. Tariq Mehmood, Sr. ASC 
 
 
 
 
 
Syed Rifaqat Hussain Shah, AOR 
 
For the State: 
Mr. Tahir Iqbal Khattak, ASC  
 
 
 
 
 
 
Date of hearing: 
 
 
07.03.2017  
 
 
JUDGMENT 
 
 
Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, J.:  Nasrullah 
alias 
Nasro 
appellant had allegedly murdered his wife namely Mst. Hameed 
Bibi at about 10.30 A.M. on 29.04.2010 by firing at her in his own 
house in village Arbaseen in the area of Police Station Saddar, 
Loralai and for commission of the said murder he was booked in 
case FIR No. 42 registered at the said Police Station on the same 
day. After a regular trial the appellant was convicted by the trial 
court for an offence under section 302(b), PPC and was sentenced 
Criminal Appeal No. 315 of 2012 
2
to death which conviction and sentence of the appellant had 
subsequently been upheld and confirmed by the High Court. 
Hence, the present appeal by leave of this Court granted on 
27.06.2012.  
 
2. 
Leave to appeal had been granted in this case in order to 
reappraise the evidence and also to consider the question 
regarding quantum of the appellant’s sentence and with the 
assistance of the learned counsel for the parties we have 
reappraised the evidence and have also attended to the question of 
the appellant’s sentence.  
 
3. 
It is not disputed that Zahir Khan complainant (PW4) was 
not an eyewitness of the alleged occurrence and according to the 
complainant he had received an information about the murder of 
his sister on telephone whereafter he had gone to the house of the 
deceased, had taken the deadbody to the hospital and had 
thereafter lodged an FIR. It had never been stated by the 
complainant in the FIR lodged by him that when he had reached 
the house of the deceased the eyewitnesses namely Taveez Khan 
(PW1) and Raza Khan (PW5) were present in that house at that 
time or that it was the said eyewitnesses who had informed him of 
the occurrence through telephone. It has been found by us to be 
intriguing that the above mentioned eyewitnesses had claimed to 
have seen the occurrence wherein Mst. Hameed Bibi had been 
critically injured but surprisingly the said eyewitnesses had never 
taken the injured victim to the hospital for medical treatment and 
till the arrival of the complainant at the house of occurrence the 
deadbody of Mst. Hameed Bibi was still lying in that house and it 
was he who had statedly taken the deadbody to the hospital. Such 
unusual conduct of the above mentioned eyewitnesses surely 
raised an eyebrow.  
 
4. 
Both the eyewitnesses produced by the prosecution, i.e. 
Taveez Khan (PW1) and Raza Khan (PW5) were cousins of Mst. 
Hameed Bibi deceased and admittedly they lived about eighty 
Criminal Appeal No. 315 of 2012 
3
kilometers away from the scene of the crime. The said eyewitnesses 
had claimed that they had come to the house of occurrence in 
order to see their cousin namely Mst. Hameed Bibi deceased but 
no particular reason for coming to the house of the deceased at 
that particular point of time had been stated by them nor any such 
reason had been established through any independent evidence. 
The medical evidence had contradicted both the above mentioned 
eyewitnesses inasmuch as Taveez Khan (PW1) had stated before 
the trial court that Mst. Hameed Bibi deceased had received a 
fireshot on her chest whereas the medical evidence showed that 
the firearm wound found on the chest of the deceased was an exit 
wound. Raza Khan (PW5) had stated before the trial court that 
both the shots fired by the appellant had hit Mst. Hameed Bibi 
deceased but the medical evidence confirmed that it was only 
fireshot which was received by the deceased and that fireshot had 
made an entry wound as well as an exit wound. The English 
version of the statement made by Raza Khan (PW5) shows that it 
was not just the complainant and the local police which had taken 
the deadbody of Mst. Hameed Bibi deceased from the spot to the 
hospital but on that occasion even the present appellant had 
accompanied them to the hospital. The Urdu version (vernacular) 
of the statement of the said witness, however, omitted the name of 
the present appellant from those who had taken the deadbody of 
the deceased from the house of occurrence to the hospital. It had 
been suggested to the eyewitnesses by the defence that the 
deceased had committed suicide and if that were so then 
accompanying of the deadbody by the present appellant to the 
hospital fitted well with that version. The High Court had itself 
concluded in so many words that the motive set up by the 
prosecution based upon strained relations between the spouses 
had not been proved. The alleged recovery of a pistol from the 
appellant’s possession during the investigation was legally 
inconsequential because the report of the Forensic Science 
Laboratory brought on the record shows that the recovered pistol 
and the secured crime-empties had been received by the Forensic 
Science Laboratory together on one and the same day.  
Criminal Appeal No. 315 of 2012 
4
 
5. 
It has been argued by the learned counsel for the 
complainant that in the cases of Arshad Mehmood v. The State 
(2005 SCMR 1524) and Saeed Ahmed v. The State (2015 SCMR 
710) this Court had held that where a wife of a person or any 
vulnerable dependent dies an unnatural death in the house of 
such person then some part of the onus lies on him to establish 
the circumstances in which such unnatural death had occurred. 
The learned counsel for the complainant has maintained that the 
stand taken by the appellant regarding suicide having been 
committed by the deceased was neither established by him nor did 
it fit into the circumstances of the case, particularly when the 
medical evidence contradicted the same. Be that as it may holding 
by this Court that some part of the onus lies on the accused 
person in such a case does not mean that the entire burden of 
proof shifts to the accused person in a case of this nature. It has 
already been clarified by this Court in the case of Abdul Majeed v. 
The State (2011 SCMR 941) that the prosecution is bound to prove 
its case against an accused person beyond reasonable doubt at all 
stages of a criminal case and in a case where the prosecution 
asserts presence of some eyewitnesses and such claim of the 
prosecution is not established by it there the accused person could 
not be convicted merely on the basis of a presumption that since 
the murder of his wife had taken place in his house, therefore, it 
must be he and none else who would have committed that murder. 
In the case in hand the eyewitnesses produced by the prosecution 
lived eighty kilometers away from the scene of the crime, their 
stated reason for presence in the house of occurrence at the time 
of the incident in issue had never been established through any 
independent evidence, their presence at the spot had not even been 
mentioned by the complainant in the FIR lodged by him and the 
conduct displayed by the said eyewitnesses was such that they did 
not inspire confidence at all. The eyewitnesses produced by the 
prosecution had been clearly contradicted in this case by the 
medical evidence and no independent corroboration had been 
received by them through any other source inasmuch as the 
Criminal Appeal No. 315 of 2012 
5
motive set up by the prosecution had not been proved and the 
alleged 
recovery 
of 
the 
weapon 
of 
offence 
was 
legally 
inconsequential. In a case of this nature the appellant could not 
have been convicted for the alleged murder merely because he 
happened to be the husband of the deceased.  
 
6. 
For what has been discussed above a conclusion is 
inescapable that the prosecution had failed to prove its case 
against the appellant beyond reasonable doubt. This appeal is, 
therefore, allowed, the conviction and sentence of the appellant 
recorded and upheld by the courts below are set aside and he is 
acquitted of the charge by extending the benefit of doubt to him. 
He shall be released from the jail forthwith if not required to be 
detained in connection with any other case. 
 
 
Judge 
 
 
Judge 
 
 
Judge 
Islamabad 
07.03.2017 
Approved for reporting.  
 
Arif    
