The Balochistan High Court announced its final judgment in Criminal Appeal No. 394 of 2024 on 05 October 2026 — Sher Zaman son of Kashik versus Gulanai and others — decided by Hon'ble Justice Iqbal Ahmed Kasi. The presence of private respondents, rather than the State alone, is significant: it strongly suggests this is an appeal against acquittal, where the complainant side challenges a trial court's not-guilty verdict.
Appeals against acquittal are the hardest appeals in criminal law to win, and the reason is structural. The law gives an acquitted accused the double presumption of innocence — the trial court's verdict of not guilty adds a second layer to the presumption every accused already enjoys. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that an appellate court may interfere only where the acquittal is based on no evidence, is perverse, or results from a misreading or non-reading of material evidence.
The typical grounds argued in such appeals are familiar to every criminal practitioner: that the trial court discarded consistent eyewitness testimony on minor contradictions, that it misapplied the benefit-of-doubt principle, or that it ignored corroborating medical or documentary evidence. The appellant must show not merely that another view was possible, but that the acquittal was not a possible view at all.
For complainants, the lesson is that the trial is the real battlefield — appeals against acquittal succeed only in exceptional cases, so the prosecution evidence must be watertight the first time. The operative outcome of this appeal (acquittal upheld or set aside) is pending verification from the certified order text, and this tracker will be updated once confirmed.