KHADIM HUSSAIN M. SHAIKH, J.---This Criminal Acquittal Appeal is direc ted against the impugned Judgment dated 26.02.2018, passed by the learned Special Judge Anti-Corruption (Prov) Larkana in Special Case No.61 of 2016, re-The State v. Mir Ahmed Noonari , emanating from Crime No.06 of 2016 registered at Police Station ACE Kashmore-Kandhkot, for offence under sections 467, 468, 471, P.P.C. read with section 5(2) Act-II of 1947, whereby accused namely , Mir Ahmed son of Ghulam Mustafa Noonari ["the respon-dent "], has been acquitted of the charge.
2. Briefly stated facts of the prosecution case are that on 23.08.2016, Inspector Sanaullah Awan, ACE, Kashmore at Kandhkot lodged FIR on behalf of the State, stating that this case has been registered with the approval of competent authority in the result of enquiry into Complaint No.29 of 2011 of ACE, Kashmore at Kandhkot, on the application moved by Dost Muhammad Noonari r the appellant"], alleging that accused Mir Ahmed Noonari was employee of Social Welfare Department. Due to abolition of the Social Welfare Department services of the respondent with other employees were placed in surplus pool and at the disposal of S&GAD. It is also alleged that after abolition of Social Welfare Department, the respondent by producing a fake and fraudulent certificate of shorthand succeeded in getting promotion as Senior Stenographer . It is alleged that the respondent had not passed the minimum qualification prescribed for the post and illegally managed bogus certificate of shorthand, hence the subject FIR was lodged. After the investigation, the respondent was sent up with the challan to face his trial.
3. After completing the formalities, a formal charge was framed against the respondent, to which he pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried vide his plea at Ex.2-A.
4. At the trial, the prosecution examined P.W-1 Raza Muhammad at Ex.3, who produced the permission letter , copies of the orders of the respondent, copy of letter , copies of certificates of the respondent and his service book at Ex.3-A to 3-H respectively; P.W-2 Haji Dost Muhammad as Ex.4, who produced applications, copy of letter of Deputy Director Legal ACE, copy of report of Technical Education Board, Karachi; copy of order of Hon'ble High Court of Sindh and copy of detailed Mark s Certificate as Ex.4-A to 4-E respectively; and, P.W-3 Sanaullah at Ex.5, who produced permission letter and FIR at Ex.5-A and 5-B. Thereafter , the learned prosecutor filed application under section 540, Cr.P.C. for calling P.W Noorullah Shaikh at Ex.6, Order passed on it at Ex.7, whereafter the learned prosecutor closed the side of the prosecution vide his statement at Ex.8. The statement of the respondent under section 342, Cr.P.C. was recorded at Ex.9, wherein he denying the allegations professed his innocence. The respondent neither examined himself on oath as required under section 340(2), Cr.P.C. nor did he examine any person as his defence witness.
5. At the conclusion of trial and after hearing the parties' Counsel, the learned trial Court has acquitted the respondent of the charge, extending him benefit of doubt vide impugned judgment dated 26.02.2018.
6. Having felt aggrieved by the said judgment, appellant Haji Dost Muhammad, has preferred the present appeal.
7. It is, inter alia, contended by the learned Counsel for the appellant that the learned Trial Court has not properly appreciated the evidence brought on record; that the prosecution has proved its case against the respondent beyond reasonable doubt; and, that the impugned judgment, passed by the learned Trial Court is illegal. Learned counsel prays that the appeal may be allowed and the respondent may be convicted.
8. Learned advocate for the respondent No.1 has mainly contended that the prosecution miserably failed to prove its case against the respondent; that there is murderous enmity between the appellant and the respondent since 2010, which has been admitted by the appellant and due to that enmity , the appellant had moved application against the respondent in the year 2011, showing that the incident had taken place in the year 1991, that is after more than two decades; and, that the learned Trial Court after appreciating the evidence brought on record has rightly acquitted the respondent. The learned counsel prays that this Criminal Acquittal Appeal may be dismissed.
9. The learned Additional Prosecutor General, adopting the arguments of the learned counsel for the respondent has contended that the learned Trial Court after appraisal of the evidence brought on record has acquitted the respondent of the charge vide impugned Judgment dated 26.02.2018 and there is no illegality in the impugned judgment. The learned Additional Prosecutor General prays for dismissal of the instant Criminal Acquittal Appeal.
10. I have considered the submissions of learned counsel for the appellant, learned counsel for the respondent and the learned Additional Prosecutor General and have gone through the material brought on the record.
11. The principles for appreciation of evidence in appeal against the acquittal are now well settled, for, an accused is presumed to be innocent and if after trial, he is acquitted, he earns double presumption of innocence and acquittal judgment or order normally does not call for any interference unless it is found arbitrary , capricious, fanciful, artificial, shocking and ridiculous and while evaluating the evidence, difference is to be maintained in an appeal from conviction and an acquittal appeal and in the latter case the interference is to be made only when there is non-reading and gross mis-readi ng of the evidence, resulting the miscarriage of justice and on perusal of the evidence no other decision can be given except that the accused is guilty . Reliance in this context is placed on the case of Yar Muhammad and 3 others v. The State (1992 SCMR 96). The Hon'be Apex Court of Pakistan has observed that: "Unless the judgment of trial Court is perverse, completely illegal and on perusal of evidence no other decision can be given except that the accused is guilty or there has been complete misreading of evidence leading to miscarriage of justice, High Court will not exercise jurisdiction under section 417, Cr.P.C." It was further held that "in exercising this jurisdiction, High Court is always slow unless it feels that gross injustice has been done in the administration of criminal justice".
In the case of Muhammad Shafi v. Muhammad Raza and another (2008 SCMR 329), the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan has held that: "An accused is presumed to be innocent in law and if after regular trial he is acquitted he earns a double presumption of innocence and there is a heavy onus on the prosecution to rebut the said presumption. M view of the discrepant and inconsistent evidence led, the guilt of accused is not free from doubt, we are therefore, of the view that the prosecution has failed to discharge the onus and the finding of acquittal is neither arbitrary nor capricious to warrant interference. The petition having no merit is dismissed and leave is refused."
In the case of State/Government of Sindh through Advocate General, Sindh, Karachi v. Sobharo (1993 SCMR 585), the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan has held that: "while evaluating the evidence, difference is to be maintained in appeal from conviction and acquittal appeal and in the latter case interference is to be made only when there is gross misreading of evidence resulting in miscarriage of justice."
In the case of Muhammad Yaqoob v. Manzoor Hussain and 3 others (2008 SCMR 1549 ), the Hon'ble Supreme Court has held that: "It needs no reiteration that when an accused person is acquitted from the charge by a Court of competent jurisdiction then, double presumption of innocence is attached to its order , with which the superior Courts do not interfere unless the impugned order is arbitrary , capricious, fanciful and against the record. It was observed by this Court in Muhammad Mansha Kausar v. Muhammad Asghar and others, 2003 SCMR 477 "that the law relating to re-appraisal of evidence in appeals against acquittal is stringent in that the presumption of innocence is double and multiplied after a finding of not guilty recorded by a competent Court of law. Such finding cannot be reversed, upset and disturbed except when the judgment is found to be perverse, shocking, alarming, artificial and suffering from error of juris diction or misreading / non- reading of evidence law requires that a judgment of acquittal shall not be disturbed even though second opinion may be reasonably possible."
In the case of State and others v. Abdul Khaliq and others (PLD 2011 SC 554), Hon'ble Supreme Court has held that:'
"The scope of interference in appeal against acquittal is most narrow and limited, because in an acquittal the presumption of innocence is significantly added to the cardinal rule of criminal jurisprudence, that an accused shall be presumed to be innocent until proved guilty; in other words, the presumption of innocence is doubled. The courts shall be very slow in interfering with such an acquittal judgment, unless it is shown to be perverse, passed in gross violation of law, suffering from the errors of grave misreading or non-reading of the evidence; such judgments should not be lightly interfered and heavy burden lies on the prosecution to rebut the presumption of innocence which the accused has earned and attained on account of his acquittal. It has been categorically held in a plethora of judgments that interference in a judgment of acquittal is rare and the prosecution must show that there are glaring errors of law and fact committed by the Court in arriving at the decision, which would result into grave miscarriage of justice; the acquittal judgment is perfunctory of wholly artificial or a shocking conclusio n has been drawn. Moreover , in a number of dictums of this Court, it has been categorically laid down that such judgment should not be interjected until the findings are perver se, arbitrary , foolish, artificial, speculative and ridiculous. The Court of appeal should not interfere simply for the reason that on the re-appraisal of the evidence a different conclusion could possibly be arrived at, the factual conclusions should not be upset, except when palpably perverse, suf fering from serious and material factual infirmities".
12. From a perusal of the record it would be seen that there is delay of more than 25 years in lodgment of the FIR, for, the alleged shorthand certificate issue d in the year 1990 was allegedly used in the year 1991, and whereas the application, which was culminated into the subject FIR in the year 2016 was moved by the appellant in the year 2011, after lodgment of the FIR by appellant Haji Dost Muhammad being Crime No.69 of 2010 at Police Station A- Section Kandhkot for offence under section 302, P.P.C, against respondent Mir Ahmed and his nephews and other relatives regarding murder of his son coupled with two other FIRs being Crime Nos. 41 of 2010 and 76 of 2010 against the respondent and others; and, thus the subject application was moved by appellant Haji Dost Muhammad after more than two decades that too after the murderous enmity between the appellant and the respondent.
Record further reveals that the appellant had also submitted-an application to the Secretary to Chief Minister Inspection and Evaluation Team, Sindh, in which the Deputy Commissioner Kambar-Shandadkot had allegedly conducted the enquiry and found the application of appellant Dost Muhammad baseless; it further reveals that on the subject Complaint bearing No.29 of 2010 of the appellant enquiry was conducted by the Circle Officer, Mukhtiar Hussain Lashari, who submitted CFR to the effect that the allegations levelled by the appellant, were not proved against the accused and had recommended for closure of the investigation, which is even admitted by the appellant in his cross-examination; P.W Raza Muhammad Pathan, who re-investigated the subject FIR had admitted that he had not enquired about the alleged certificate from the Social Welfare. Department and the alleged certificate was not got verified from the concerned department nor the evidence of the relevant person was recorded during the investigation; P.W-1 appellant Dost Muhammad had stated that he got the certificate verified from the concerned department, but the said verification letter was not brought on record during the trial; the learned Trial Court after appreciating the evidence observed that no material was brought on record to connect the accused with the alleged offence and admittedly there is murderous enmity between the parties, therefore, false implication of accused cannot be ruled out; and, that the evidence brought on recor d is contradictory and cannot be relied upon safely without corroborative evidence from any independent person, which was lacking in this case. I have seen the impugned judgment which reveals that the learned Trial Court has properly dealt with the evidence of the parties having pointed out the material discrepancies, infirmities, and glaring contradictions etc. therein.
13. Under these circumstances, I am of the view that the learned trial court after appreciating the evidence in its true perspective has come to the conclusion that the prosecution has failed to prove its case against the respondent (accused) beyond a reasonable doubt and acquitted the respondent of the charge and such a conclusion of an acquittal arrived at by the learned Trial court based on appreciation of evidence cannot be termed to be arbitrary , fanciful, artificial, shocking and ridiculous, therefore, the impugned acquittal judgment does not call for any interference in this criminal acquittal appeal which being devoid of merit is liable to be dismissed. These are the reasons of short order announced by me on 04.1 1.2019, whereby this Criminal Acquittal Appeal was dismissed.