Examination of accused under section 342 of the Code is not a dogmatic ritual involving vitiating impact; the fundamental purpose of such examination is to enable the accused to explain any circumstance appearing in the evidence against him and that may be done at any stage of inquiry or trial without previous warning and the accused is under no obligation even to respond to that; it is essentially a communication between accused and the Judge. The underlying purpose is not to take the accused by surprise; he must be aware of the accusation and material being adduced in support thereof.
The record shows that the petitioner was fully aware of the motive set up by the prosecution; his counsel specifically cross-examined the witnesses about the ongoing dispute.
Thus, it is not open to the defence that the petitioner did not know as to why he was in the dock. It is high time to get out of the quagmire of hyper technical past so as to adopt a more realistic and dynamic approach to ensure an effective administration of criminal justice, a sine qua non to maintain peaceful equilibrium in the society; an inconsequential lapse or failure to observe a procedural formality without causing prejudice or handicap to an accused in his defence cannot be allowed to deny justice to the victim of crime. Similarly, presumption of genuineness is attached to the official acts both under article 129 (e) of the Qanun-i-Shahadat Order, 1984 as well as under Article 150 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973, supreme law of the land and, thus, in the absence of a positive proof to the contrary, pleaded specifically, a delayed dispatch by itself cannot be viewed with suspicion.
Criminal Petition No.406 of 2017 Noor Zaman vs The State
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