IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN 
(Appellate Jurisdiction) 
 
 
 
PRESENT: 
Mr. Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel 
Mr. Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed 
 
 
 
 
Criminal Petition No.18 of 2019 
(Against the impugned judgment dated 11.12.2018 
passed by the Peshawar High Court Peshawar in 
Crl. Appeal No.687-P/2018) 
 
 
 
 
Matti Ullah 
 
 
…Petitioner(s) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Versus 
 
 
The State  
…Respondent(s) 
 
 
For the Petitioner(s): 
Malik Nasrum Minallah, ASC 
 
Syed Rifaqat Hussain Shah, AOR  
 
For the State: 
Shah Faisal  
 
Date of hearing: 
01.07.2020. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ORDER 
 
 
 
Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed, J.- Indicted by a Special 
Court (CNS) at Peshawar for possessing cannabis, weighed  as 7200 
grams, the petitioner was returned a guilty verdict; convicted under 
section 9(c) of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997, vide 
judgment dated 21.7.2018, he was sentenced to 6-years rigorous 
imprisonment with a direction to pay fine in the sum of Rs.100,000/- 
or to undergo 6-months SI in default thereof, pre-trial period inclusive, 
upheld by the High Court vide impugned judgment dated 11.12.2018, 
vires whereof, are being assailed through the captioned petition.  
2. 
 
It is argued that the petitioner, a Frontier Constabulary 
personnel, had been substituted as a scapegoat to let off the real 
offender and this according to the learned counsel can be safely 
gathered from discrepant statements of the recovery witnesses, spelling 
out a story incompatible with the case set up in the crime report. 
 Criminal Petition No.18 of 2019  
2
Forensic report has been assailed for being based upon a deficient 
‘protocol’ lagging to conclusively confirm the narcotic character of the 
contraband. Absence of a witness from the public, in a busy 
neighbourhood, has been cited as a last straw for prosecution’s faialure 
to drive home the charge beyond doubt.  
3. 
 
Heard. 
4. 
 
Prosecution 
case 
is 
primarily 
structured 
upon 
the 
statements of Muhammad Ayub, SI (PW-2) and Abdul Hannan (PW-3); 
they are attached with Anti Narcotic Force in the metropolis and had 
statedly acted on a tip off to confront the petitioner at the designated 
point; they subdued the petitioner with contraband and a motorbike, 
both secured vide inventory of even date; cache weighing 7200 grams 
cannot be viewed as an insignificant quantity. The witnesses 
comfortably responded the cross-examination and the learned counsel 
has not been able to point out any flaw or discrepancy in their 
narratives either on salient features of the case or matters collateral 
therewith; they are in a unison that inspires confidence and, thus, 
absence of support from the public does not diminish value of their 
testimony, fortified by a ring to truth. Reluctance by the public to stand 
in aid of law is symptomatic of abysmal civic apathy which cannot be 
allowed to be used as an escape route from justice. Being functionaries 
of the Republic, both of them are second to none in status; their official 
acts and declarations are statutorily presumed as intra vires and unless 
proved contrarily and in the absence of any flaw or discrepancy in their 
depositions, their testimony cannot be conditioned by additional riders.  
 
Forensic report sufficiently details tests applied for determination 
of narcotic character of the contraband, carried out on the samples 
transmitted from safe custody and as such is not violative of ‘protocol’  
directed by the rules.  
 
Story of substitution may not find a buyer as well inasmuch as, 
admittedly, a Frontier Constabulary official, the petitioner could not be 
conceivably saddled with a fake imposition without a backlash. Even 
otherwise, there appears no earthly reason for the officials to hound the 
petitioner with no axe to grind in a crowded metropolis with a cache 
substantial enough in volume as well as cost.  
 
Conclusions unanimously drawn by the Courts below are 
squarely founded on proper appraisal of prosecution evidence and on 
our own independent analysis, we have not been able to find space to 
 Criminal Petition No.18 of 2019  
3
entertain any hypothesis other than petitioner’s guilt. Petition fails. 
Leave declined.    
 
 
 
Judge 
 
 
 
 
Judge 
Islamabad, the 
1st July, 2020 
Not approved for reporting 
Azmat/- 
