Law:

Section:

(a) Penal Code (XLV of 1860)--- ----Ss. 302, 324 & 34----Qatl-i-amd; attempt to commit qatl-i-amd; common intention---Appreciation of evidence---Benefit of doubt---Recovery of crime weapon, absence of---Delay in dispatching crime empties to Laboratory---Abscondence alone not sufficient to award conviction---Eye-witness held to be chance witness/ suspect evidence---Motive not proved---Corroborative evidence, admissibility of---Principles---Accused, along with two others, were alleged to have attacked the complainant, while he was on his way with his son and grandson, with firearms and killed the son and injured the others with the butts of firearms over a money dispute---Trial Court convicted accused under Ss. 302(b) & 324, P.P.C. and sentenced him to death and imprisonment for seven years along with payment of fine and compensation; while the two co-accused were acquitted---Complainant and the grandson, being closer to the accused in their front, were not hit---Prosecution witnesses deposed that they had been fired at from a distance of four paces by the accused, but none of them had sustained any firearm injury; whereas, the deceased, who was at a distance of fourteen paces, got hit---Deceased and the accused had been shown in one and the same level at the crime spot, but according to the postmortem report, the entry wound on the person of the deceased was at higher level than its exit wound, which meant that at time of firing, the accused was on higher position and the deceased on down level---Medical evidence had, therefore, negated the ocular account---Escape of the prosecution witnesses and their being let off by the accused, who were armed with automatic weapons ejecting number of shots in seconds, created serious doubts about the mode and manner of the incident as alleged by the complainant---Complainant, in his initial report, had not stated as to how and by what means the deceased had been shifted to the hospital, and prosecution witnesses had given contradictory modes as to the shifting---Eye-witness, who was son-in-law of the complainant and allegedly a dispenser, alleged that, at time of occurrence, he came out of his clinic and witnessed…