قبرکشائی کے بارےلاہورہائیکورٹ کا انتہائی اہم فیصلہ

PLD 2020 Lahore 394.

Section 174(1)(c) of the Cr.P.C. stipulates that when an officer incharge of a police station or some other competent police officer receives information that a person has died under circumstances raising a reasonable suspicion that some other person has committed an offence, he shall immediately give intimation thereof to the nearest Magistrate of Ist Class to hold inquests and shall make an investigation and forward report thereof to the concerned Magistrate. Section 176 Cr.P.C. postulates that when any person dies while in police custody or in any other case mentioned in Section 174(1) clauses (a)(b) and (c) a competent Magistrate may hold an inquiry into the cause of death irrespective of investigation by police and during such process if he considers expedient to make an examination of dead body of any person who has been already interred, in order to discover the cause of his death, he may cause the body to be disinterred and examined under subsection (2).

Bare perusal of above provisions of law would reflect that sole purpose of exhumation of dead body is to discover cause of death of the deceased and to unearth whether it was a natural death or otherwise (Qatl-e-Amd). It is basic scheme of criminal law that an offence if committed must be unearthed for which criminal machinery has to be set into motion. Section 176(2) Cr.P.C. does not put any clog of locus standi to approach a Magistrate for exhumation of dead body. It can be carried out by the Magistrate on his own or on the request or information of even a stranger with the sole purpose to know the actual cause of death. Accusation of murder at least warranted an investigative probe which was only possible through forensic analysis of the corpse. Real cause of death could be ascertained only by exhuming the body of deceased. Since intent of impugned orders was merely to ascertain real cause of death, same was just and proper as the same was to advance the cause of justice, as such the same cannot be annulled in the discretionary jurisdiction under Article 199 of the Constitution. Of course such jurisdiction is to be exercised for advancement of justice and not to perpetuate injustice.

PLD 2020 Lahore 394