' ASIF SAEED KHAN KHOSA, J.---Akhtar Iqbal appellant was allegedly apprehended at a time when he was driving a motorcar and the raiding party had recovered different kinds of narcotic substances from the boot of that motorcar. A criminal case was registered against him and after having been convicted by the learned trial court for an offence under section 9(c) of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997 he was sentenced to imprisonment for life and fine. Subsequently his appeal filed before the Peshawar High Court, Peshawar was dismissed and, hence, the present appeal before this Court by leave of this Court granted on 27-9-2012.
2. We have heard the learned counsel for the appellant and the learned Special Prosecutor, Anti- Narcotics Force at some length and have gone through the record of the case with their assistance. A striking feature of this case is that the only material witness produced by the prosecution before the learned trial court was just a witness who had attested the Memorandum of Recovery and it is admitted at all hands that the officer actually affecting the recovery, i,e, Assistant Director Rehmat had died before making a statement before the learned trial Court and the other recovery witness namely Gul Ahmed had also expired by then. It is noteworthy that the head of the raiding party was Assistant Director Asif Khan but for some odd reason he had not been produced by the prosecution before the learned trial court and no explanation was offered for such failure.
The learned counsel for the appellant has taken us through the statement made by the sole surviving attesting witness of the Memorandum of 'Recovery namely Mati-ur-Rehman (P.W.2) and has pointed out a number of factors available in his statement which had created some doubts in the alleged recovery effected from the appellant but the most important factor in that connection, which compounded all those doubts and raised a big question mark upon the veracity of the prosecution's case against the appellant, was that after allegedly recovering the contraband substance from the boot of the motorcar driven by the appellant the parcels of the recovered substance were sealed with a monogram reading as SJ and it had been disclosed by Matiur- Rehman (P.W.2) before the learned trial Court that the said monogram belonged to one Sameen Jan Inspector who was not even posted at the relevant Police Station at the time of the alleged recovery from the appellant and as a matter of fact at the said time the said Inspector was serving at a Police Station in Quetta. Mati-ur-Rehman (P.W.2) had not been able to advance any explanation whatsoever as to why the recovery officer namely Assistant Director Rehmat had not put his own monogram on the seals of the parcels prepared by him and as to why he had used the monogram of some other officer who was not even posted at the relevant Police Station at the relevant time. As if this were not enough, a question had arisen before the learned trial Court as to whether samples had, indeed been secured from each and every separate packet of the narcotic substances allegedly recovered in this case or not and in that regard the learned trial court had ordered desealing of two parcels of the recovered substances and the note recorded by the learned trial Court in that regard tends to create an impression as if the claim of the prosecution that a sample had been taken from each and every slab of the recovered substances might not be correct. In the presence of such serious doubts regarding veracity of the prosecution's case against the appellant and in the backdrop that the appellant was serving at the relevant time as an Inspector of the Motorway Police who had earned a Commendation Certificate for his honesty and efficiency we have wondered as to why the appellant could be falsely implicated in this case as claimed by him. In this regard the learned counsel for the appellant has pointed out with reference to the statement made by the appellant under section 342, Cr.P.C. That some time before the present case having been registered against the appellant he had been instrumental in the arrest of a drug baron who was later on, tried and convicted and was sentenced to death and the present case had been registered against the appellant only to get even with him on that score with the connivance of the local police. In this background we have found it to be a reasonable possibility that if the appellant was to be falsely implicated in a case of this nature then some bags of recovered narcotic substances bearing the monogram of Sameen Jan Inspector on their seals could well have been utilized for planting the same against the appellant so as to falsely entangle him in the present case. Keeping all these possibilities in mind and raising necessary inferences from the facts available on the record we have arrived at a conclusion that a possibility cannot safely be ruled out of consideration regarding the appellant having been falsely implicated in the present criminal case and, thus, we have decided to extend the benefit of doubt to him.
3. For what has been discussed above this appeal is allowed, the conviction and sentence of the appellant recorded and upheld by the learned courts below are set aside and he is acquitted of the charge by extending the benefit of doubt to him. He shall be released from the jail forthwith if not required to be detained in connection with any other case.