' Accused Slimane Mamdooh, a French national was arrested from International Departure Lounge, Terminal No,3., Karachi Airport, and from his possession 4800 grams of powder of Heroin, valued at Rs,4,80,000 was recovered. A case under clause(8) of section 156(1) of the Customs Act, 1969, was registered against him and after usual investigation he was sent up before Special Judge (Customs and Taxation) Karachi, to stand trial for the said offence. On 20-9-1987, the accused was allowed bail by Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui, J. In the sum of Rs,2,00,000 with one surety and P.R. In the like amount to the satisfaction of trial Court. Applicant Iftikhar Ahmed stood surety for the said accused and bound himself in the aforesaid amount to produce him on every date of hearing till otherwise directed. The accused, however, absconded on 6-12-1988, and he is still at large.
Applicant Iftikhar Ahmed has shown his inability to produce the accused before the trial Court. He had simply prayed for the remission of penalty under subsection (5) of section 514 Cr.P. C. The learned Special Judge, however, refused this prayer for the following reasons:-- "The plea that he stood surety on assurance of his friends is neither logical nor reasonable. If the accused was known to his friends any one of them could offer himself for the said purpose. The accused was a perfect stranger for applicant and for such a person normally risk of this magnitude is not taken. It appears that money to him was provided by accused and he (applicant) after purchasing Khas Deposit Certificates deposited the same in Court. The applicant provided an opportunity to accused to run away. He, therefore, is not entitled to any concession."
' This order dated 4-4-1989, is the subject-matter of the present revision application.
2. I have heard Mr. Muhammad Ali Shaikh, learned counsel for the applicant and Mr. Ali Nawaz Dahraj, learned counsel for the State.
3. It is contended on behalf of the applicant that he has stood surety for accused through mere benevolence on the assurance of some friends and has gained nothing out of it. It is difficult to be' patient with argument of this kind. Admittedly accused SLIMANE MAMDOOH, was a French national with no direct or indirect link with the present applicant. There is nothing on record to prove that the A applicant stood surety for him on the assurance of his friends. Even the names of the said friends are not disclosed by the applicant. The answer to this contention is again furnished by the learned Special Judge in his well-considered order. Obviously the applicant was instrumental in managing the absconsion of accused and he is not entitled to any concession. There are several considerations which deter an accused from running away from justice and risk of financial loss is one of them, and if this risk of monetary loss is made easier then there will no possibility to secure the presence of accused persons involved in cases of this nature.
4. Mr. Muhammad Shaikh, learned counsel for the applicant has placed reliance upon the cases reported as Dildar and another v. The State PLD 1963 SC 47, The State v. Syed Mahjabeen Hussain Naqvi PLD 1965 Karachi 238, M.M.Malik v. The State 1981 PCr.LJ 157, Murtuza Shah and another v. The State PLD 1986 Peshawar 43 and Haitam v. The State and others 1987 MLD 977, in an attempi to show that a balance is to be kept between undue leniency and undue severity. The facts of all the above reported cases are, however, distinguishable. In Dildar's case the Supreme Court found from record that both the sureties had acted through mere benevolence, which is clear from the following observations:-- "We find that both the sureties acted through mere benevolence on behalf of another shopkeeper whom they knew either directly or through an agent. Ghulam Hussain had a shop about 20 yard away from that of Mir Jan who had been a customer of his for some 10 years and he had always thought of Mir Jan as an honest man because his behaviour was good. When he was arrested, a relative of his named Muhammad Yamin approached Ghulam Hussain who agreed out of neighbourly feeling to stand surety. For some time Mir Jan appeared regularly in Court until he fell ill and absented himself on medical certificate, and then while still unwell, he left Karachi for some place near Multan on hearing of his mother's illness. Ghulam Hussain later heard from Mir Jan's relative Muhammad Yamin that in the Multan area, Mir Jan contracted double pneumonia and died there in June or July, 1959. Ghulam Hussain was not connected at all with Mir Jan who was a Path an and came originally from the Frontier.
' Dildar runs a hotel in Karachi and comes from the United Province of India originally. He became surety for Mir Jan at the request of one of his servants Zarin Khan Pathan, a relation of Mir Jan. Zarin Khan had been working for Dildar for some 3 or 4 years. Relying on what Zarin Khan said, he stood surety. Later on, Mir Jan disappeared and Zarin Khan also disappeared so that he was helpless in the matter of procuring Mir Jan's attendance."
5. Decisions even of the highest Court on questions which are essentially questions of fact cannot be cited as precedents governing the decision of other cases, which must rest in the ultimate analysis upon their own particular facts.
6. No case for interference is made out and the revision application is dismissed.