SC rejects plea to commute death sentence in murder over marriage refusal

ISLAMABAD, Oct 13 (APP): The Supreme Court has ruled that murdering a woman for rejecting a marriage proposal is a grave offence and that her refusal cannot justify the killing or serve as a mitigating factor for reducing the sentence.

The court dismissed a review petition filed by Muhammad Kamran, who was sentenced to death for murdering Maimoona Shaheen, and upheld his death sentence.

A three-member bench comprising Justice Muhammad Hashim Khan Kakar, Justice Salahuddin Panhwar and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim announced the verdict after hearing the case.

In its judgment, the court observed that every woman has the fundamental right to accept or reject a marriage proposal according to her own wishes, and taking her life merely for refusing a proposal could not be justified under any circumstances. Marriage is a relationship based on the mutual consent of two individuals, and neither a man, a family nor society has the right to impose its will on a woman, it added.

The court held that treating a woman’s refusal as provocation or a ground for reducing punishment would endorse the notion that her will is subordinate to a man’s desires. Anger, resentment or emotional distress cannot justify reducing the sentence for a serious crime such as murder, it observed.

According to the judgment, Kamran shot and killed Maimoona Shaheen at her home after she and her family rejected his marriage proposal, as stated by the prosecution. The trial court sentenced him to death under Section 302(b) of the Pakistan Penal Code and ordered compensation. The high court and subsequently the Supreme Court upheld the sentence.

In his review petition, the convict argued that he had spent nearly 14 years in prison and requested that his death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. The Supreme Court, however, clarified that the time already spent in custody was not, by itself, sufficient grounds for commuting a death sentence, noting that death and life imprisonment carry different legal consequences.

The judgment stated that, under the principle of life expectancy, commuting a death sentence to life imprisonment required at least 25 years of imprisonment, additional compelling mitigating circumstances and a crime that was not of an exceptionally grave nature. The court noted that Kamran was arrested on September 5, 2012, and had served approximately 14 years in prison, making him ineligible for relief under this principle.

The Supreme Court also addressed social attitudes underlying violence against women and forced marriages, observing that a woman’s consent could not be disregarded in the name of honour, family traditions, ego or emotions.

Referring to practices such as ghag, swara and watta satta, the court observed that attitudes treating women as commodities were among the underlying causes of violence against them.

The judgment further stated that Islam requires a woman’s free consent for marriage and recognises her right to choose her spouse. Pakistan, as a party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), is also committed to recognising women’s right to freely choose their spouses.

The court concluded that no legally acceptable grounds existed for reducing Kamran’s sentence and that he had failed to identify any apparent legal error or defect in the earlier judgment warranting review. It accordingly dismissed the petition and maintained his death sentence.