ISLAMABAD - Supreme Court of Pakistan has observed that the Lahore High Court (LHC) had misread the evidence and had not demonstrated the requisite care in examining the record by ignoring many critical aspects in Khadija Siddiqui stabbing case which occasioned failure of justice.

“We are constrained to observe that the High Court had not demonstrated the requisite care in examining the record of this case and resultantly such a glaring misreading of the record on the part of the High Court had been occasioned,” observed a detailed judgment on the case issued on Tuesday.

On January 23, the top court had set aside the judgment of LHC, wherein son of a LHC’s senior lawyer namely Shah Hussain, who stabbed his classmate Khadija Siddiqui 23 times in a broad day light, was acquitted from the charges of attempt to murder.

The 16-page detailed judgment authored by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa further observed, “we expect the High Court to do better in this regard in future.”

Hussain had attacked Khadija in May 2016 where she, along with her driver, had gone to pick up her younger sister from school Sophia Siddiqui.

Additional Sessions Judge Lahore in March 2017 had awarded five years imprisonment to Hussain. Restoring the sentence awarded by District and Session Court, the top court ordered the police to take Hussain into custody.

The detailed judgment noticed that some downright misreading of the evidence had been committed by the LHC and for some of the reasons prevailing with it the LHC had ignored many critical aspects of the case available in the evidence brought on the record.

“The exercise of appreciation of evidence in this case by the High Court has, thus, been found by us to be laconic and misreading and non-reading of the record by the High Court has been found by us to have led the said Court into a serious error of judgment occasioning failure of justice and clamouring for interference in the matter by this Court,” the top court observed.

It added that a judgment of acquittal suffering from serious misreading or non-reading of the evidence materially affecting the final outcome of the case is nothing short of being perverse and, hence, not immune from interference.

In the instant case, the top court observed, the trial and District and Session courts, the appellate courts, had undertaken an exhaustive analysis of the evidence available on the record and had then concurred in their conclusion regarding guilt of Hussain having been proved beyond reasonable doubt.

“In the absence of any error of law committed by the courts below and in the absence of any illegality, irregularity or impropriety committed by the courts below in the trial or hearing of the appeal the High Court ought to have been slow in interfering with the concurrent findings of fact recorded by the courts below,” the top court’s judgment stated.

The detailed judgment further read that LHC ought to have confined itself to correctness, legality, regularity or propriety of the proceedings of the courts below rather than embarking upon a full-fledged reappraisal of the evidence, an exercise fit for appellate jurisdiction. 

Regarding merits of the case, the top court straightaway observed that the incident had taken place in a broad daylight and at a place which was thickly populated and was buzzing with activity at the relevant time.

“An FIR in respect of the said incident had been lodged with sufficient promptitude and the medical examination of the injured victims had also been conducted without loss of time.”

“The medical evidence had provided sufficient support to the ocular account furnished by the above mentioned eyewitnesses and the trial court as well as the appellate court had found the evidence produced by the prosecution to be worthy of implicit reliance but the High Court had taken a different view of the matter and had acquitted respondent No. 1 (Hussain) of the charge. 

The detailed judgment observed that according to the LHC the blood-stained clothes of the injured victims had not been produced whereas the record of the case shows that blood-stained clothes of Sofia Siddiqui had not only been produced and secured during the investigation but a memorandum of such recovery had duly been exhibited before the trial court.

The judgment further observed that LHC ignored part of the statement made by Dr. Rozina Mustafa, who took initial statement of Khadija when she was taken to hospital. 

The detailed judgment observed that the orders of Illaqa Magistrate, requiring Khadija to appear before District Standing Medical Board, had been suspended by the high court through a writ petition.  

“Unfortunately this ground weighing with the High Court was also based upon a serious non-reading of the relevant record of the case by it,” the top court observed adding that LHC had drawn adverse inference against the prosecution on this matter.

The top court observed that Khadija had received as many as twenty-three injures on different parts of her body and it was unimaginable that no blood of the said victim had come out of her body while being subjected to such a fierce assault through a lethal weapon.

It has further been observed that the LHC had failed to read that portion of the statement of Khadija wherein she had explained that she was being harassed by Shah Hussain and she wanted to complain against him to her mother and, therefore, an attempt was made by Hussain to silence her. 

The top court observed that the defence had itself brought on the record many photographs, some in intimate positions, establishing a close and intimate relationship between Khadija and Husain.

It is further observed that the letter written by Khadija to Husain brought on the record of the case by the defence left no room for doubt regarding very close friendship between the two which friendship had statedly hit some complications in the recent past.

“We note with some concern that in the entire operative part of the impugned judgment passed by the High Court no discussion had taken place as to why the High Court had ignored or disbelieved the ocular account furnished by the minor and injured eyewitness namely Sofia Siddiqui.”