IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN 
(Appellate Jurisdiction) 
 
PRESENT: 
Mr. Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel 
Mr. Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed 
 
 
Criminal Petition No.687 of 2020 
(Against the judgment dated 20.05.2020 passed by 
the Peshawar High Court Bannu Bench in Crl. Misc. 
BA No.205-B/2020) 
 
 
Muhammad Khan 
 
 
…Petitioner(s) 
 
 
 
 
 
Versus 
Iqbal Khan & another  
…Respondent(s) 
 
For the Petitioner(s): 
Mr. Salah-ud-Din Malik, ASC/AOR 
 
For the State: 
Ms. Aisha Tasneem, ASC with Ghousullah, 
SI/I.O. P.S. Pezu Lakki Marwat. 
 
For the Respondent(s): 
Mr. Saleem Ullah Khan Ranazai, ASC with 
respondent No.1 in person. 
 
Mr. Mahmood Ahmed Sheikh, AOR 
 
Date of hearing: 
08.02.2021. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ORDER 
 
 
 
Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed, J.- Impugned herein is order 
dated 20.05.2020 by a learned Judge-in-Chamber of Peshawar High Court 
at Bannu Bench, admitting Iqbal Khan respondent, accused in a case of 
homicide, to post arrest bail; according to the prosecution, he, on the 
fateful day, alongwith his brother Ayub Khan, armed with Kalashnikovs, 
fatally targeted Fazal Rehman, deceased, in the backdrop of an ongoing 
blood feud; witnesses survived the assault unscathed. Autopsy confirmed 
solitary fire shot in the left eye with corresponding exit. During spot 
inspection, the Investigating Officer secured 30 casings of Kalashnikov. 
The accused avoided arrest, however, the respondent was arrest after 
almost four years of the incident, co-accused still away from the law. The 
High Court, ignoring respondent’s absconsion, granted him bail on the 
ground that given the joint role it was far from being clear as to whose shot 
hit the deceased. A position defended by the learned counsel for the 
respondent.  
2. 
 
Heard. Record perused. 
3. 
 
Totality of circumstances does not admit space, that too, within 
the restricted scope of tentative assessment to hypothetically absolve the 
 Criminal Petition No.687 of 2020 
2
respondent from the indivisibility of his role of being in the community of 
intention with the allegation of active participation in the crime.  
 
Though the absconsion by itself is not proof of guilt nor 
insurmountably stands in impediment to release of an offender if otherwise 
a case for grant of bail is made out, nonetheless, it is a circumstance which 
cannot be invariably ignored without having regard to peculiarity of 
circumstances in each case as there are situations that possibly entail 
consequences. In the present case, both the respondents opted to avoid the 
law; one of them is yet not arrested, thus, in the absence of any 
investigative analysis or conclusion, there was no occasion for the High 
Court to itself presumptuously extricate the respondent from the web, 
woven by the identity of circumstances jointly hovering upon  both the 
accused; the impugned exercise transcends beyond the barriers of tentative 
assessment; it throws the entire prosecution case to the wind, an option 
neither contemplated by law nor falling with the remit of “further inquiry”;  
a case for intervention stands made out. Criminal petition is converted into 
appeal and allowed; impugned order dated 20.05.2020 is set aside and bail 
granted to the respondent is cancelled.   
  
 
Judge 
 
 
 
Judge 
Islamabad, the 
8th February, 2021 
Not approved for reporting 
Azmat/- 
