PESHAWAR, April 25: The Peshawar High Court has ruled that a juvenile offender cannot be awarded death penalty under the Qisas and Diyat law.

A two-member bench of the court partially accepted criminal appeal of a juvenile offender sentenced to death by a qazi court in an honour-related murder case, and commuted his sentence to payment of Diyat money to the tune of Rs300,000 to the legal heirs of the deceased.

The bench, comprising the chief justice of the court, Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan and Justice Dost Muhammad Khan, directed that the period the appellant had already spent in prison should be considered his prison term.

The appellant, Jehangir Shah, had killed his sister-in-law, Shahida, on May 12, 2000, in Swat. He suspected that the deceased was of bad character and was having relations with an orderly of a hospital. The Swat zila qazi had convicted him on July 1, 2002.

Advocate Jawed A. Khan appeared for the appellant and argued that at the time of occurrence he was less than 18 years of age. He contended that under section 308 of the Qisas and Diyat law a minor was not liable to qisas and was only liable to pay Diyat.

He added, if the offender had attained sufficient maturity to understand the consequences of murder he could be sentenced to 14 years imprisonment.

Mr Khan produced the school certificate of the appellant in which his date of birth was mentioned as March 10, 1984. He added that in the charge sheet his age was mentioned 16 years.

He stated that the prosecution had not challenged his age at any stage of the trial.

He cited a judgment of the Supreme Court, stating that once school certificate was produced the age of a person could not be disputed.

NWFP Advocate General, Jehanzeb Raheem, argued that they would not support the sentence but there was enough evidence against him on the record.