1. HAMOODUR RAHMAN, C. J.-The respondent in this case was tried for the murder of one Malik Dad on the night of the 22nd of January 1969, at about `khuftan qaza' time. The learned Sessions Judge, Derajat, convicted him under section 302, P. P. C. And sentenced him to transportation for life. But, on appeal, the High Court of Peshawar gave him the benefit of doubt, set aside his conviction and sentence and ordered his acquittal.
2. There was no eye-witness of this occurrence, but the prosecu--petition relied on the first information report recorded at 10 p.m. At Kulachi Police Station, three furlongs away from the place of the incident, which was lodged by the deceased himself and subsequently treated as a dying declaration, and extra-judicial con--fession alleged to have been made by the accused in the presence of Ataullah Khan and Mahmood Khan, which the accused subsequently denied, and the recovery of blood-stained knife said to have been made at the instance of the accused himself.
3. The prosecution also alleged that there was strong motive for the crime as one-and-half years prior to the incident a fight had taken place between Luqman, a brother of the accused, and the deceased. Later on a reconciliation was affected between them and nothing happened until the day of the incident when, again, an altercation developed, earlier in the day, between the deceased and the said Luqman in the Chowk of Mahmood Khan. Again they were separated by the people of the locality.
4. The High Court, however, after carefully considering the evidence, took the view that, if the prosecution story was to be believed, it was Luqman who should have attacked the deceased and not his brother, the present respondent. Furthermore, since according to the prosecution itself the night was a dark night, the place of incident was a desultory locality and the accused bad caused only one knife injury on the deceased from behind without uttering a word, the possibility of Identification of the assailant was not free from reasonable doubt, particularly since the deceased had not disclosed the name of his assailant to his own father, who was the first person he met after the incident.
5. The fact that, at the time the dying declaration was recorded, admittedly several relations of the deceased, who had accompanied him to the Police Station, were standing around the cot during the recording of the statement, did not also exclude the possibility of prompting by the persons accompanying the deceased to the police station.
6. The extra judicial confession was disbelieved, because, Ataullah Khan, to whom the confessional statement was alleged to have been made on the night of occurrence, had not disclosed this fact either in his 161, Cr. P. C. Statement or in his subsequent section 164, Cr. P. C. Statement. In fact, before the Police, he had stated that the story of the attack was narrated to him by one Abdur Rahman, a brother of the accused.
7. The extra-judicial confession was not believed by the trial Court either.
8. So tar as the recovery of the blood-stained knife is concerned, this too has been disbelieved by both the Courts below on the ground that one of the recovery witnesses bad stated that the recovery memo. Was signed by him on the following day at degar--wela in the baithak of the Sub- Inspector.
9. Learned counsel appearing in support of this petition sought to contend that the High Court bad proceeded on the basis of surmises and not taken into account the fact that the witnesses had no particular reason to falsely implicate the respondent totally leavlng out the real culprit. There was no reason also to reject the dying declaration which was made soon afterwards by the victim himself. The possibility of the victim having recognised his assailant was also there as the blow was struck from close quarters with a knife.
10. None of these contentions have any substance. In fact, to accept them, would amount to giving the benefit of doubt to the prosecution and not to the accused. The High Court has, in our view, given very cogent and valid reasons for not accepting the prosecution evidence and giving the benefit of doubt to the accused. We see no ground for interference. The conclusions reached by the High Court are neither perverse nor such that no Court could have reasonably arrived at those conclusions.
11. This petition is accordingly dismissed.