Law: Penal Code (XLV of 1860)

Section: 302

Penal Code (XLV of 1860), ---S. 302-Murder-Benefit of doubt--Circumstantial evidence-Facts alleged or proved against accused such as could be connected with reasonable hypothesis compatible with innocence of accused and leaving no room for exclusion of other fairly strong possibilities-Accused in absence of other evidence to connect him with offence, held, not guilty of charge of murder--Conviction set aside in circumstances. Date of hearing: 29th and 30th September 1969.   JUDGMENT MUHAMMAD AFZAL ZULLAH, J.-Mubarak Ali, aged 26 years has been convicted and sentenced to death under section 302, P. P. C. by the Additional Sessions Judge, Lahore Camp, Sheikhupra, vide his judgment, dated 8th August 1968. The convict has appealed and the case is also before us under section 374, Cr. P. C., for the confirmation of the death sentence. 2. The prosecution case, as disclosed in the evidence, is that Afzal Ahmad (P. W. 2) wanted his daughter Mst. Mussarat Bibi to marry Rehmat Ullah deceased, after getting divorce from her husband Ali Akbar (P. W. 20). The appellant who is the real brother of Mst. Mussarat Bibi did not like this idea because he wanted her to remain faithful to her husband. There was another cause for estrangement between the father and the son (appellant) on account of the fact that Afzal Ahmad had contracted a second marriage with Mst. Zeenat Begum, in 1947. She used to live with him while the appellant and his mother along with her other children started living in the house of his maternal grand father at lyallpur and was not on visiting terms with his father. The mother of the appellant had died in 1959/60 and it was in these circumstances that with the concurrence of the maternal grandfather, the, appellant had given the hand of his sister Mst. Mussarat Bibi in marriage to Ali Akbar, mentioned above. This circumstance also, it has been suggested, was a motive for the appellant having, resented the idea of his father to get a divorce from Ali Akbar for Mst. Mussarat Bibi and. to marry her with Rehmat Ullah deceased. Negotiations in respect of the proposed marriage were going on- between Afzal Ahmad on the one side and the deceased and his brother…