Confession of accused before police can't be prove against him under QSO article 38 and 39 except article 40. Circumstantial Evidence

 Confession of accused before police can't be prove against him under QSO article 38 and 39 except article 40.

Under Article 38 of the Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984 no confession of an accused made before a police officer can be proved against him. Likewise, Article 39 of Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984 bars the proving of a confession made in the police custody. The combined effect of both these articles is to the effect that confession of an accused made before a police officer, either in the custody or otherwise, is inadmissible. Article 40 of Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984 provides an exception to the rule embedded in Articles 38 & 39. According to the exception contemplated in Article 40 of Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984, an incriminating fact discovered in consequence of an information provided by an accused while in the custody of a police officer can still be proved against him.

Crl. A. No. 642 & Murder Reference
55-19
THE STATE VS NADEEM SHAH
PLJ 2024 Cr.C 772

Circumstantial Evidence

The crime of homicide is often committed in public view and on occasions at isolated places. In the latter category of cases, the assassin endeavours by design not to leave behind traces of his involvement. The guilt of a delinquent in such cases of homicide can still be proved through circumstantial evidence, if available. The circumstantial evidence pertains to the facts or events from the scrutiny of which the guilt or innocence of an accused can be extracted. For handing down a guilty verdict in a case of homicide, each and every incriminating circumstance forming the chain of circumstantial evidence must be clearly established so as to form an irresistible conclusion about the involvement of accused in the crime. Each component of the circumstantial evidence is required to be tested on reasoning through application of judicious mind so as to ascertain that it is not hit by any legal provision making it inadmissible. Above all, for awarding conviction such incriminating circumstances must so strongly be interwoven with each other as to make an unbroken chain, the one end of which must be touching the corpse and the other proving the guilt of accused. Circumstantial evidence for proving the guilt or innocence of an accused is even acknowledged in Islamic Law as ‘Alqarain’ which is a plural of ‘Alqariinah’, which in legal terminology refers to an event and serves as a sign or gives traces of existence or non-existence of a fact in issue. The admissibility of circumstantial evidence can further be traced from the event of Prophet Yusuf and Zulekha which is quoted in Verse Nos.25 to 28 of Surah Yousaf.

From the recital of Quranic verses mentioned above, it can well be gathered that the allegation pointed towards Prophet Yusuf was declared to be false on the basis of circumstantial evidence. It is generally argued in favour of circumstantial evidence that a witness can tell lie but the circumstances cannot. It is equally correct to mention here that presumption of truth about the circumstantial evidence is nothing more than a notion, thus the court have to be at their toes while evaluating such cases. On occasions, circumstantial evidence is crafted by planting false witnesses to secure conviction against the accused facing trial.

Crl. A. No. 642 & Murder Reference

55-19

THE STATE VS NADEEM SHAH

PLJ 2024 Cr.C 772