IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN 
(Appellate Jurisdiction) 
 
 
 
PRESENT: 
MR. JUSTICE MANZOOR AHMAD MALIK 
MR. JUSTICE SAJJAD ALI SHAH 
MR. JUSTICE QAZI MUHAMMAD AMIN AHMED  
 
Criminal Appeal No.366/2010 
(Against judgment dated 18.3.2010 passed by Lahore High 
Court Rawalpindi Bench Rawalpindi in Crl. Appeal No.335 
of 2003) 
 
Muhammad Hanif 
 
 
….Appellant 
Versus 
The State 
   
 
 
… Respondent 
 
 
For the Appellant  
Mr. M. Shahid Kamal Khan, ASC  
Mian Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, ASC 
 
 
For the State 
: Mr. Tariq Mehmood Jehangiri,  
Advocate General Islamabad  
with Muhammad Hussain  
Lasi, DSP/I.O.  
 
Date of Hearing 
: 16.10.2019. 
 
 
JUDGMENT 
  
 
 
  
QAZI MUHAMMAD AMIN AHMED, J.- On a tip off, a contingent of 
Police Station Tarnol, District Islamabad, intercepted a truck bearing 
Registration No.JT/7808 with a vehicle bearing No. AA/7504 being the 
payload; upon search of the cargo, secret cavities, concealing a huge 
cache of charas, packed in different bundles with total weight of 3 
mound and 12 kilograms were detected; the stuff was secured vide 
inventory; appellant is owner of the vehicle being shifted in the truck; 
samples, taken from each bundle, confirmed narcotic character of the 
contraband. Upon indictment, the appellant claimed trial, pursuant 
whereto, prosecution produced four witnesses to drive home the charge. 
The appellant confronted prosecution evidence with the following plea:- 
 
“I had been serving as driver of the said Toyota Pickup. On 
24.5.2002, the owner of the said Toyota vehicle, loaded it in 
truck No.JT/7808 and asked me to take the same to Lahore 
to be delivered to his brother in law; who is running an auto 
workshop there. As the owner wanted to sell it, after 
 Criminal Appeal No.366/2010 
2
reconstitution of the engine, which was seized, however, on 
my way to Lahore, the Police stopped the truck, and as 
already mentioned, took the same to the Police Station. I 
was told by the police at the Police Station that charas was 
recovered from the secret cavities of the Toyota Pickup. I 
was not at all aware of any incriminating substance, 
concealed anywhere in the Toyota Pickup, as alleged. The 
police, to whom I had disclosed all this, traced the owner 
and, instead of challaning him, let him off after bargaining 
with him, and challaned me being a poor driver. I have 
been made a scapegoat. The owner also did not care to 
pursue my case.” 
  
The learned Trial Court was not much impressed by appellant’s plea and 
instead preferred the prosecution evidence to return a finding of guilt 
with ultimate penalty of death, affirmed by the High Court vide impugned 
judgment dated 8.3.2010 vires whereof are being assailed by leave of the 
Court on the grounds that samples were not taken from each piece of the 
contraband and thus the appellant cannot be saddled with the 
responsibility for the whole lot, nor being an unsuspecting employee on 
the payroll could be attributed conscious knowledge, blamed upon the 
alleged employer.  
2. 
 
We have gone through the statements of the witnesses 
constituting an uninterrupted chain of facts ranging from seizure to 
forensic analysis of the contraband; the witnesses are in a comfortable 
unison on all the salient details regarding interception of the huge 
consignment as well as steps taken subsequent thereto. Since the 
contraband comprising various pieces, quite a few in number, was 
packed in different bundles, separation of samples for chemical analysis, 
taken from each bundle, is found by us as exercise sufficient to 
constitute forensic proof; argument that samples were required from 
each piece, packed in each bundle, is entirely beside the mark. It would 
be naively unrealistic to assume that random sampling left space for any 
doubt about the wholesome narcotic character of the contraband, too 
huge to be manipulated for concealment in an expensive luxury vehicle. 
Exoneration of driver and cleaner of the truck by the police, in 
retrospect, lends credence to the case set up by the prosecution, even 
otherwise structured upon flawless and immaculate evidence. Defence 
suggested to the witnesses in the box and position taken in support 
thereof are far less than convincing to override the overwhelming 
evidence, inexorably pointed upon the appellant; plea of substitution, 
 Criminal Appeal No.366/2010 
3
clamored without entering the witness box to blame the employer, having 
abandoned the appellant out in the cold does not hold much water as 
well. View concurrently taken on appellant’s culpability is not open to 
any legitimate exception. However, quantum of sentence suggested to be 
exacted from the appellant by the Courts below warrants a serious 
reconsideration.  Huge quantity of cache, notwithstanding, given toxic 
lethality of the contraband being on lower side coupled with the position 
taken by the appellant, though rejected, nonetheless, calls for exercise of 
caution in awarding irreversible penalty of death, therefore imprisonment 
for life, in circumstances, is viewed by us as a conscionable wage for the 
crime. Consequently, penalty of death is altered into imprisonment for 
life to be commuted with benefit under Section 382-B of the Code of 
Criminal Procedure, 1898; amount of fine and consequence of default are 
kept intact. Criminal Appeal is partly allowed in the above terms.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGE 
 
  
 
 
JUDGE 
 
 
 
 
Islamabad, the 
16th October, 2019 
 
JUDGE 
Ghulam Raza/* 
 
 
 
 
