The Supreme Court, on Monday, put to rest a case of alleged negligence by a magistrate that had led to a wrongful conviction by a trial court while outlining guidelines to identify suspects.
The bench, led by Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa, accepted the apology of Magistrate Kunwar Anwar Ali, who also said that he was an administrative officer and was promoted to the post of the magistrate on his second day at work. He also admitted that he did not have any background in police laws.
Based on his identification, a trial court had sentenced a suspect Asfandyar to death for the murder of an Adil Butt in Lahore. This death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. Asfandyat, then, challenged his conviction in the supreme court, which acquitted him earlier this month, after he had spent 10 years behind bars. On hearing that Asfandyar had suffered a wrongful conviction because of a faulty identification, the court had ordered the magistrate to appear in person.
CJP blames govt for appointing untrained man as magistrate
While Justice Khosa rendered the apology, he observed that it was the state that was responsible for a wrongful appointment of a man not even trained as per the law. He further added that the identification parade pertained to police rules, not civil or criminal codes. In the guideline order the SC sent to magistrates and courts of the country, it referred to judgments by former judge Khalilur Rehman Ramday on identification parades; stressing that it was inappropriate to line up suspects for identification and they should be identified separately. The order further directed that the safety of suspects should be deemed necessary by the respective trial court. Such mistakes are not to be repeated otherwise the top court would take serious action against the perpetrators. Since assuming charge as the top judge on January 18, Justice Khosa has constantly shown his strong command over criminal jurisprudence. He has repeatedly highlighted flaws in all components of the criminal justice system, may it be the investigation, prosecution, or even judiciary. Likewise, he strongly advocates that perjury should be considered a punishable offence. This first came to light in the Aasia Bibi case where he noted that according to the law, witnesses recording false statements in death penalty cases could be sentenced for life, after conducting a summary trial. He had also sighed that both lower courts and the Lahore High Court (LHC) had overlooked discrepancies between the statements of witnesses in the Aasia Bibi case.
Published in Daily Times, February 23rd 2019.
