9. Instead of providing support to the ocular account the
medical evidence produced by the prosecution had gone a long
way in creating dents in the case of the prosecution. It is crucial
to note that, at the time of handing over a dead body by the
police to the Medical Officer, all reports prepared by the
Investigating Officer are also to be handed over in order to
assist the Medical Officer in the examination of the dead body.
But in the case in hand, the required documents were not
handed over to the Medical Officer along with the dead body of
the deceased, as according to Dr. Hamid Hassan, Medical
Officer (PW3), who conducted the postmortem examination on
the dead body of the deceased at 7.15 a.m. on 24.8.2015, though
the dead body of the deceased was brought in the hospital at
about 7.15 p.m. on 23.8.2015 but the inquest report and the
injury statements were not with the dead body when he
received the dead body for the purpose of postmortem
examination and the relevant documents were received by him
next morning at 6.27 a.m. on 24.8.2015. It is not discernible from the record that when the dead body of deceased was sent for
postmortem examination by the police at 7.15 p.m. on 23.8.2015,
why the documents were not sent along with the dead body
rather the same were sent with the delay of more than 12 hours
of the occurrence, what happened in between, which delayed
the postmortem examination for more than 13 hours. There is
no explanation at all available on record for such delay. No
doubt, the noticeable delay in post mortem examination of the
dead body is generally suggestive of a real possibility that time
had been consumed by the police in procuring and planting
eye-witnesses before preparing police papers necessary for the
same. Reliance is sought on “Muhammad Rafique alias Feeqa
versus The State” (2019 SCMR 1068), “Ulfat Hussain v. The
State” (2018 SCMR 313), “Nazir Ahmad versus The State”
(2018 SCMR 787) and Muhammad Yaseen v. Muhammad Afzal
and another” (2018 SCMR 1549).
Part Of Judgment
Lahore High Court
Murder Reference
42-16
2020 LHC 269
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