KARACHI, Jan 17: Brother of Saulat Ali Khan alias Saulat Mirza, convicted in the murder case of a former KESC managing director, Shahid Hamid, has filed a petition with the Sindh High Court praying for directing the state (respondent) to reinvestigate the case.
Notice has been issued to the advocate-general Sindh in the petition filed by Nawab Mirza, advocate, of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, on behalf of petitioner Farhat Ali Khan, in the light of the impugned record of the Supreme Court.
The petitioner has prayed for reinvestigating the case FIR No 58/1997 under Sections 302 PPC R/Ws 34 PPC in the light of available material, particularly the statement of the complainant, Shahnaz S. Hamid, wife of the slain chief of the KESC, in HRC No 12/1997 made before the then chief justice of Pakistan.
The petitioner has also prayed for declaring that the complainant suffered from perjury, while making testimony in the above ATC Case No 15/1989, State Vs Saulat Ali Khan in the anti-terrorism court No 5, Karachi, in contradiction to her statement made in HRC No 12/1997 before the then chief justice of Pakistan.
The petitioner is brother of condemned prisoner/convict Saulat Ali Khan in ATC Case No 15/1999 (The State versus Ali alias Saulat Mirza alias Umer son of Wajahat Ali) FIR No 158/1997 under Section 302 of PPC. read with Section 34 of PPC and Section 7 of the ATA 1997. FIR No 395/1998, PS Defence under Section 13-E Arms Ordinance, 1965 PS Gulshan, Karachi, wherein the petitioner’s brother named above was convicted and sentenced to death penalty by the Special Judge, ATC No 5, Karachi. His appeal No 28/1999 was dismissed by the High Court of Sindh and thereby upheld the order of the trial court. The Supreme Court, by a judgment dated September 19, 2001, had dismissed the Criminal Appeal No 336/2000 (arisen out of CrPLA No 16/2000 Saulat Ali Khan Vs The State).
The petitioner has maintained that in view of newly-discovered facts the issue of identification by alleged eyewitnesses had become alive. It was submitted that in this case life of the petitioner was hanging on the evidence of these so-called eyewitnesses and in order to do complete justice, the impugned judgment was liable to be set aside on this ground alone and the case was to be remanded to the trial court for retrial to enable the petitioner to confront the complainant with earlier statement as required by the Qanoon-i- Shahadat Order.
It is the case of the petitioner that the complainant in her statement in HR No 12/1997 had deposed in the Supreme Court, obviating any possibility of witnessing the occurrence, inasmuch as any possibility of identifying the assailants/culprits, either by the complainant or by PW Umar Shahid Hamid or any occupant of the deceased’s house or any passerby.
In view of the above elaborated testimony of the complainant party, the investigation office concerned, as well as the attesting and supervisory agency, and those concerned were under statutory obligations to interrogate and investigate into this material aspect of the case, when even otherwise neither the complainant nor her son PW Umer Shahid Hamid saw the assailants. Therefore, the investigation badly suffered from dereliction of statutory duty, causing prejudice to the accused, consequently necessitating reinvestigation into the offence.
The statement made by the complainant in HR No 12/1997 before the then chief justice of Pakistan placed in juxtaposition to the statement of the complainant made before the trial court, unequivocally established prima facie two dimensions of the case (a) Malafide deprivation of available material favouring the accused for contradicting the prosecution case, on the one hand, and, on the other, the complaint suffered from wilful perjury during the course of judicial proceedings, (b) In addition thereto, the accused stands highly prejudiced in fact and in law on account of malafide, illegal and un- constitutional acts of the prosecution agency, culminating in the death penalty to the accused for no fault on his part.
It was also the contention of the petitioner that the trial court and the appellate court as well as the accused stood condemned as a result of offence of perjury perpetrated by the complainant in league with the inquiry Officer and the investigation agency, which provided malafide and inflexible chance to the complainant to manipulate her evidence in the trial court to secure the death sentence of the accused, who at the relevant time stood deprived of a material in possession and power of prosecution, which if had been placed on record, it could have proved to be highly fatal to the case of prosecution.
A separate application had been filed requesting the High Court to direct the advocate-general to place on record the original statements.
Through another application, the petitioner has also requested to stay the execution of death sentence of the accused till the decision of the petition on consideration of the facts and grounds stated in the petition and affidavit.