ملزم پر الزام تھا کہ اس نے اپنے کتے کو اشارہ کرکے مدعی پر چھوڑا اور کتے نے مستغیث کی ٹانگ کو کاٹ کر زخمی کردیا۔

 لاہور ہائیکورٹ نے قرار دیا کہ ایسی صورتحال میں دفعہ 289 ت پ کی بجائے میڈیکل سرٹیفکٹ میں درج ضربات کے مطابق دفعات کا اطلاق ھوگا۔

289 ت پ کا اطلاق اس صورت میں ھوگا جب مالک کی غفلت کی وجہ سے جانور کسی کو زخمی کرے۔

2022 MLD 744

There is a specific allegation against the Petitioner that he sicced his dog on the Complainant which nipped his right leg near the ankle. PWs have got their statements recorded under section 161 Cr.P.C. in support of the prosecution case and, according to them, the incident was not an accident. Medical evidence corroborates the ocular account and the doctor has declared the injuries sustained by the Petitioner as Ghyr Jaifah Damiyhah and Ghyr Jaifah Mutalahimah which attract section 337-F(i) and 337-F(iii) PPC respectively. The offence under the last-mentioned provision is non-bailable. On a tentative assessment of the available evidence and considering the fact that there is also previous rivalry between the accused and the Complainant, section 289 PPC does not apply. ‘Negligence’ which is the foundational element for this provision is missing.

Bail refused.

Historically, animals have occupied an important place in the debates on criminology and in dispensation of criminal justice. According to Piers Beirne, there were times when they were even “prosecuted and punished”. He writes: “In parts of medieval Europe from approximately 1280 until as late as 1750, animals that had harmed humans were sometimes prosecuted and punished for their misdeeds (Beirne, 1994). Ideological confirmation of this seemingly bizarre practice was extracted from biblical dictates. Thus: ‘if an ox gore a man or a woman that they die, then the ox shall be surely stoned’ (Exodus, xxi 28). Its institutional enforcement was sanctioned both by folklore and by legal (especially Catholic) opinion, which agreed on, the need to prosecute deserving animals in the medieval courtroom, and, in appropriate cases, to execute them for their crimes. Domestic[acted] animals were tried in the secular courts and, if necessary, were exposed to the same terrors of public execution as were humans. Wild animals and ‘vermin’ were tried in the ecclesiastical courts and, if found guilty, were subject to the course of a malediction.”.

Animals can become relevant in crimes in a number of situations. Firstly, when they are “partners” with the humans and are used for the commission of offence. For example, where a human drives, rides, leads or otherwise controls an animal to execute his plot or employs it in crimes like witchcraft. Secondly, where the animals are themselves the subject of crime like dogfighting or other forms of abuse.

Thirdly, where they are human property and are stolen, poached, damaged, rustled or otherwise misappropriated, and fourthly, when they are used as weapons − as an instrument of physical or psychological terror by one human against another. This case pertains to the last category.

It is by now well settled that a seemingly innocuous thing may become dangerous when “under the circumstances, in which it is used or threatened to be used, causes death or other serious physical injury or is readily capable of causing it.