LAHORE, July 15: A division bench of the Lahore High Court reversed on Tuesday the orders of an ATC to summon SSP (Investigation) Chaudhry Shafqat as co-accused in a case about the death of a youth in police custody.
The ATC had summoned the SSP after making a conclusion that he misused his authority as the investigation officer of the case. The SSP had given the opinion that the death of Falak Sher in police custody was not intentional and beyond the scope of Section 302 of PPC. It was accidental and was to be treated under Section 319 of PPC.
The trial court had taken an exception to the finding of the SSP, observing that he had intentionally given the opinion to save the four accused policemen.
Headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Husain Chaudhry, the bench ruled that the trial court did not have the jurisdiction to declare the SSP accused at the preliminary stage of the trial.
According to the bench, such finding could only be given at the stage of the pronouncement of verdict while the decision to summon the SSP as co-accused was premature.
It also noted that the opinion of an investigation officer was not binding on the trial court which might not agree with him in certain circumstances. Such disagreement did not necessarily mean that he had given a biased opinion and should be summoned as co-accused.
Challenging the trial court’s orders, the SSP had pleaded that his opinion was based on independent and impartial evidence and he couldn’t be accused of having given misleading findings to save his subordinates.
According to the SSP, the circumstantial evidence had supported his findings that the death of Falak Sher was accidental.
Falak Sher’s counsel took the plea that the trial court’s orders were just as the SSP had given a partial opinion to save the accused police officials. He claimed that the malafide of the SSP was evident from the fact that he gave an opinion which was not consistent with the rest of the evidence available on the judicial record.
In this case, Inspector Khalid Mahmood Farooqui of Nawankot police station along with his four subordinates are accused of picking up 18-year-old Falak Sher from his residence.
The youth was tortured to death in police custody during November 2002. The heirs of Falak Sher had moved the ATC against the accused police officials. During the hearing of the case, SSP Shafqat was summoned as co-accused.