ISLAMABAD: While upholding the acquittal order of an accused of forging a passport, the top court set aside the Sindh High Court verdict – ruling that the High Court had cancelled the acquittal order without any cogent reason in the matter.
A two-member bench comprising Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi allowed the criminal petition filed by Altaf Yousuf, setting aside the Sindh High Court’s judgment of October 17, 2022, which had overturned his 2006 acquittal in a passport forgery case and remanded the matter for fresh trial.
The case originated from an FIR registered in 2006 under sections of the Pakistan Penal Code dealing with cheating, forgery, and use of forged documents, along with provisions of the Emigration Ordinance, 1979. The prosecution alleged that the petitioner had helped a co-accused woman travel abroad using forged documents, and that he had issued her air tickets in furtherance of the scheme.The petitioner was acquitted by a judicial magistrate in Malir, Karachi, in 2006, and separately by a special judge in a connected case in 2017, after the original charge sheet was bifurcated to try the accused separately under the Emigration Ordinance. The State’s appeal against the first acquittal was decided by the Sindh High Court only after several years, resulting in the reversal now overturned by the Supreme Court.
The prosecution alleged that the petitioner had helped a co-accused woman travel abroad using forged documents, and that he had issued her air tickets in furtherance of the scheme.
Authoring the judgment, Justice Mazhar observed that the trial court had thoroughly examined the prosecution’s case and found no tangible evidence that the petitioner knew the co-accused was travelling on fake documents. The Court noted that merely issuing air tickets as a travel agent did not, by itself, amount to cheating or fraud, and that no statement of the co-accused had been recorded under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code to implicate the petitioner.
The judgment extensively discussed the doctrine of presumption of innocence, describing it not as mere legal theory but as affirmative evidence in favour of the accused. The Court invoked the principle that the burden of proof lies with the one who alleges, not the one who denies, and held that an acquittal carries a “double presumption of innocence” — first through the initial presumption of innocence, and second through the trial court’s own findings – which appellate courts should be reluctant to disturb absent glaring errors of law or fact.
The Court held that the High Court had reversed the acquittal in a slipshod manner, without scrutiny of the record or incriminating material, and had failed to independently assess the trial court’s reasoning before remanding the case.
Accordingly, the Supreme Court restored the 2006 acquittal order passed by the judicial magistrate in Malir, Karachi, bringing the case to a close.
