Hanumant vs State of Madhya Pradesh

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 56 of 1951

Decision Date: 23 January, 1952

Coram: MAHAJAN J.

In the matter titled Hanumant versus the State of Madhya Pradesh, the judgment was rendered on the twenty-third day of January, 1952 by a Bench of the Supreme Court of India consisting of Justice Gupta, A. C., Justice Beg, M., Justice Hameedullah, Justice Chandrachud, Y. V., and Justice Gupta, A. C. The case was reported in the All India Reporter at the citation 1975 AIR 1083 and concerned the question of whether circumstantial evidence was sufficient to sustain a criminal conviction. The Court emphasized that reliance on conjecture or mere suspicion could never replace the requirement of legal proof, and therefore, when evidence is entirely circumstantial, the circumstances from which guilt must be inferred need to be fully established. All facts that are proved must be consistent only with the hypothesis that the accused is guilty, and the circumstances must possess a conclusive tendency that excludes every alternative explanation except the one the prosecution seeks to prove. In other words, the evidential chain must be so complete that it leaves no reasonable ground for a conclusion compatible with the innocence of the accused and must demonstrate, within the bounds of ordinary human probability, that the act was committed by the accused. The Court also referred to the principle articulated in Reg. v. Hodge (1838) 2 Lew. 227, stating that an admission made by a person, whether it amounts to a confession or not, cannot be dissected and only portions of it used against him; it must be considered either in its entirety or not at all.

The appeal before the Court was a consolidated criminal appeal, designated as Criminal Appeal No. 56 of 1951, entered by special leave against two orders of the High Court of Judicature at Nagpur dated the ninth day of March, 1950, which were themselves the result of Criminal Revisions Nos. 152 and 153 of 1949. The original proceedings originated from a complaint lodged by the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Anti-Corruption Department, Nagpur, against the appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 56 of 1951. Additional representation was provided for the appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 57 of 1951. Counsel for the appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 56, assisted by junior counsel, appeared on behalf of that appellant, while counsel for the appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 57, also supported by a junior, represented the second appellant. The State of Madhya Pradesh was represented by counsel for the respondent, assisted by a junior advocate. The judgment of the Court was delivered by Justice Mahajan. The Court noted that the appeal combined the two separate orders of the Nagpur High Court, each arising from earlier judgments and orders dated twenty-fourth March 1949 of the Sessions Judge, Nagpur, and fifteen-th January 1949 of the Special Magistrate, Nagpur, respectively. The consolidated appeal therefore sought to address the legal correctness of the convictions and sentences imposed in the underlying criminal proceedings, which had involved charges of conspiracy, forgery, and related offences connected with the procurement of a contract for the Seoni Distillery between April 1947 and March 1951. The Court proceeded to examine the evidentiary material, particularly the reliance on circumstantial evidence and admissions, to determine whether the convictions satisfied the stringent standards required for criminal liability.

In the trial before Shri B.K. Chaudhri, Special Magistrate at Nagpur, the appellant identified as Criminal Appeal No. 56 of 1951, H. G. Nargundkar, who held the office of Excise Commissioner, Madhya Pradesh, and the appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 57 of 1951, R. S. Patel, were each prosecuted for a conspiracy to obtain the contract for operating the Seoni Distillery for the period from April 1947 to March 1951 by falsifying the tender identified as Exhibit P-3A, as well as for separate offences of forging the same tender and forging an additional document identified as Exhibit P-24. The Special Magistrate found both accused guilty on all three counts and imposed rigorous imprisonment of one year on R. S. Patel for each charge, together with fines of Rs 2,000, Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000 respectively for the first, second and third charges. The same Magistrate sentenced Nargundkar to six months’ rigorous imprisonment for each charge and ordered fines of Rs 2,000, Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000 respectively for the three charges. Both appellants subsequently filed appeals against their convictions and sentences in the Nagpur Court of the Sessions Judge. That Court set aside the conviction under the first charge of criminal conspiracy, which is covered by section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, for both men, but it affirmed the convictions and sentences under section 465 of the Indian Penal Code relating to the forgery of Exhibits P-3A and P-24. The appellants sought revision of the Sessions Judge’s order to the High Court, but their revision applications were rejected. Thereafter, an application for special leave to appeal under article 136 of the Constitution of India was filed, and this Court granted such leave on 24 March 1950.

The appellant Nargundkar belonged to the Central Provinces and Berar Provincial Service and had previously served in the substantive role of Deputy Commissioner for several years; he was appointed Excise Commissioner of Madhya Pradesh in April 1946 and retained that position until 5 September 1947. The second appellant, R. S. Patel, was a sugar technologist and chemical engineer who obtained his technical education and practical training in the United States, then worked as Chief Chemist and General Manager in factories located in Madras for five years before moving to the Central Provinces in 1944, when the Provincial Government granted him a licence to establish a distillery for manufacturing industrial spirit. On 11 September 1946, in his capacity as Excise Commissioner, Nargundkar issued a public invitation for tenders to operate the Government distillery at Seoni and to supply spirit to designated districts for a four-year term commencing on 1 April 1947 and ending on 31 March 1951. The deadline for submission of tenders was fixed as 31 October 1946. In response, five sealed tenders were submitted on that date, including those from the appellant Patel, from K. B. Habibur Rahman, from Zakirur Rahman, and from Edulji V. Doongaji (identified as PW 4). These sealed documents were handed over by the Excise Commissioner to the office superintendent, S. W. Gadgil (PW 13), who received them with the seals still intact for safe custody.

In this matter, the Court explained that after the sealed tenders were received for safe custody, the Superintendent, S W Gadgil, transferred them to his own room and placed them under lock and key inside the office safe. The prosecution’s case was that on 9 November 1946 the accused Excise Commissioner, Nargundkar, removed those sealed tenders from the safe and carried them to his residence, where he opened them. According to the prosecution, he disclosed the rates contained in the tender of E J Doongaji (Exhibit P-6, PW 4) to the second accused, R S Patel, who was then permitted to substitute a different tender (Exhibit P-3A) that offered rates lower than those of Doongaji. The prosecution further alleged that after being opened, the tenders were returned to the office on 11 November 1946 and handed to Amarnath (PW 20), the Assistant Commissioner of Excise, for preparation of a report, and that on Nargundkar’s recommendation the tender submitted by Patel was accepted and the contract awarded to him. In May 1947, after an application (Exhibit P-1) was filed by a certain Dilbagrai (PW 14), the Anti-Corruption Department initiated an inquiry. Both accused persons became aware of this investigation. To create evidence favorable to themselves, they purportedly fabricated a letter (Exhibit P-24) and back-dated it to 20 November 1946. The letter was alleged to have been forged with the intention of committing fraud and of injuring both Amarnath (PW 20) and Doongaji (PW 4). The prosecution asserted that Exhibit P-24 was typed on a typewriter identified as “Article A”, which had been purchased on 30 December 1946 by the National Industrial Alcohol Co., Nagpur, a company of which Patel was the managing director. It was further alleged that the endorsement made by Nargundkar in that letter – the note reading “No action seems necessary. File”, marked to Superintendent “S” – was not actually made on the date of 21 November 1946 that the document bore. The letter was said to have been delivered by Nargundkar to the Office Superintendent, S W Gadgil (PW 13), around the middle of August 1947. Subsequently, Nargundkar wrote another letter (Exhibit P-26) on 2 October 1947 to S S Sanyal (PW 19), then the Excise Commissioner, requesting that Exhibit P-24 together with a note sheet (Exhibit P-27) be retained in safe custody. Both accused denied committing the offences of criminal conspiracy, forgery and abetment thereof.

The first accused, Nargundkar, repudiated the claim that he had attended the office on 9 November 1946 and denied having removed the tenders from the safe. He asserted that the tenders were opened by him only within the office on 11 November 1946. The second accused, Patel, denied that the tender of Doongaji had been shown to him by Nargundkar between 9 November and 11 November 1946, contending that the document identified as Exhibit P-3A was in fact his original tender submitted on 31 October 1946. Regarding Exhibit P-24, Patel denied that the letter was fabricated or back-dated; he maintained that it was not typed on “Article A” and further argued that the statements contained in the letter were accurate. Nargundkar also affirmed that the endorsement on the letter had been made by him on 21 November 1946, contrary to the prosecution’s suggestion of a false date. These denials formed the core of the defence against the charges presented by the prosecution.

In this matter, the Court observed that the endorsement on the document in question had been made by the accused on 21 November 1946. The Court noted that the first charge had failed and therefore there was no need to discuss it further. To establish the second charge, the prosecution was required to prove several factual points: first, that Gadgil, identified as PW 13, had handed the sealed tenders to the accused Nargundkar on 9 November 1946; second, that Nargundkar had taken those tenders to his home; third, that between 9 November and 11 November he had met Patel either at his residence or at some other place; and fourth, that Nargundkar had shown or communicated to Patel the particulars of the tender submitted by Doongaji, thereby enabling Patel to replace Exhibit P-3A with his own original tender before 11 November 1946. The Court acknowledged that, apart from the first of these propositions, there was no direct evidence to substantiate any of the remaining facts, and that the nature of the case necessitated reliance on circumstantial evidence to prove them.

The Court further held that the proposition that the sealed tenders had been handed over by Gadgil to Nargundkar on 9 November was proved solely on the uncorroborated evidence of Gadgil, which stood in direct conflict with Nargundkar’s denial. The Court examined Gadgil’s own position in the case and found that he was himself a suspect. During the investigation, the police removed him from his office for approximately eight months, placed him on leave at the police’s request, and subsequently extended that leave. After his leave expired, Gadgil was kept off duty without receiving a salary for about five months, but he was later restored to full salary after he gave testimony supportive of the prosecution. The Court observed that Gadgil’s statements changed and were refined on material points at each stage of his deposition, and that some of his particulars were contradicted by the testimony of Ramaswami, PW 80.

In addition, Gadgil admitted that he was an accomplice in the forgery of Exhibit P-27, a document alleged to have been fabricated for the defence, although no separate prosecution had been launched concerning that forgery. Exhibit P-27 bore the date 31 October 1946. Gadgil’s own narration regarding that document was quoted by the Court: “He (Nargundkar) put down his signature and the date 31 October 1946. This order was actually written by Sh. Nargundkar in the note-sheet, Exhibit P-27, in the month of July or August 1947. The dates were antedated. In the margin of the note-sheet I have put down my initials S.W.G. and put the date 31 October 1946. This note-sheet was not prepared on 31 October 1946. He asked me to keep it in my custody.” The Court concluded that Gadgil had become a party to the creation of a forged document. Whether his testimony was truthful or false—an issue that appeared to be clarified during cross-examination—the Court found that he could not be relied upon for any factual determination. The Court expressed surprise that none of the three lower courts had drawn attention to this problematic aspect of Gadgil’s evidence. When the trial court and the appellate court arrived at concurrent findings of fact based on Gadgil’s testimony, the Court noted that such findings are generally not disturbed except in the most exceptional circumstances. However, the Court indicated that because the finding rested on the uncorroborated testimony of a witness of Gadgil’s character, the lower courts should have exercised greater caution, and that a review was warranted in light of the material facts and the likelihood of substantial injustice.

In principle, the Supreme Court did not disturb findings of fact that lower courts reached after they had relied on a witness’s testimony, except in highly unusual situations. However, the Court explained that when a fact was based on the testimony of a witness of the sort of Gadgil, and the lower courts ignored the well-established rule that such testimony should not be accepted unless it is backed by another piece of evidence on the record, the appellate court could review that finding, even on a special leave application, if the surrounding circumstances demanded it and if a serious injustice had resulted. After a careful examination of the material placed on record, the Court concluded that the trial court and the appellate court erred in accepting Gadgil’s uncorroborated testimony to determine that he had handed the tenders to Nargundkar on 9 November 1946. The Court noted that Gadgil had not been free to act independently; he had been kept under police surveillance throughout the investigation and the trial, and he received his full salary only after giving evidence that satisfied the prosecution. Moreover, Gadgil had openly sworn that he willingly participated in the forgery of Exhibit 13-27. Assuming that the accused Nargundkar had indeed taken the tenders to his home, the prosecution had still failed to establish the additional facts necessary to link the accused to the crime.

The Court observed that no direct evidence was produced to prove those additional facts. Instead, the prosecution and the lower courts relied on certain circumstances and on the intrinsic content of the disputed document, Exhibit P-3A. The Court reminded that special rules apply when dealing with circumstantial evidence, and that there is a constant danger that conjecture or suspicion may be substituted for proper legal proof. Accordingly, the Court quoted the warning of Baron Alderson in Reg v Hodge, who cautioned juries against the temptation to fit disparate circumstances together by inventing a missing link that merely serves to confirm a preconceived theory. The Court stressed that, when evidence is circumstantial, the facts from which guilt is inferred must first be firmly established, and all such facts must be consistent only with the hypothesis that the accused is guilty. Again,

In this case the Court explained that the circumstances relied upon to convict must be of a conclusive nature and must be so strong that they exclude every hypothesis except the one the prosecution seeks to prove. The Court said that a chain of evidence must be complete enough that no reasonable basis remains for a conclusion compatible with the accused’s innocence, and that the evidence must show, within all human probability, that the accused performed the act. Despite the vigorous arguments presented by the learned Advocate-General on behalf of the State, the Court found no such evidence either within Exhibit P-3A or outside it. Consequently the Court was compelled to observe that the lower courts had fallen into the error warned against by Baron Alderson, namely that conjecture or suspicion had taken the place of legal proof. The trial magistrate had held that the friendship between the two accused had developed rapidly, that their relationship was very intimate, and that accused 2 was in a position to influence accused 1, thereby concluding that a motive existed for the commission of the crime. The learned Sessions Judge disagreed with that finding, a view that the High Court affirmed. The High Court observed that the evidence purporting to show friendship or undue favour was not sufficient to form the basis of a finding, and it further held that there was nothing to demonstrate that the appellant Nargundkar received any illegal reward or the promise of one for showing Doongaji’s tender to accused R.S. Patel.

The Court noted that the first circumstance on which the trial judge had heavily relied was therefore negated by both the Court of Appeal and the revision authority. Since the Court found no motive whatsoever for appellant Nargundkar to present the tenders to accused Patel or to accept a substituted tender from him, the principal link in the trial court’s chain of reasoning collapsed. The Court explained that merely amicable relations between the two accused or their official relationship could not constitute a sufficient motive for the offence of forgery. The prosecution’s case principally rested on the intrinsic evidence of Exhibit P-3A, which the lower courts described as unusual, peculiar and strange, and the Advocate-General argued that such a document could not be genuine. The Court emphasized that this argument would have force only if its underlying premises were correct. After examining the contents of Exhibit P-3A, the Court did not find anything extraordinarily unusual that could not have existed without the author having seen Exhibit P-6. The Court therefore proceeded to examine the alleged peculiar features of Exhibit P-3A and, in order to appreciate the points made by the learned Advocate-General, set out certain facts, beginning with Exhibit P-9, which is the notice calling for tenders for the supply of country spirit.

In the Seoni distillery area a notice was issued that invited tenders for the supply of country spirit. The notice specified five different categories of rates that could be quoted. The first category required a flat rate that would apply for a period of four years. The second category permitted rates on a sliding scale also for a period of four years. The third category allowed an all-in rate on the sliding scale for a single year, namely the fiscal year 1947-48. The fourth category allowed flat rates determined on the basis of the price of mahua flowers for each of three years covering the period 1948-51. The fifth and final category permitted an all-in sliding-scale rate likewise based on the price of mahua flowers for the same three-year period of 1948-51. The trial magistrate interpreted the notice to mean that it did not request separate rates for each individual year; rather, it called for one flat rate that would be applicable for the entire four-year span.

Following that construction, the tenders submitted by Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman, which are identified as Exhibits P-4 and P-5, each quoted a single flat rate that would cover the whole four-year term and made no reference to distinct rates for separate years. In contrast, the tender submitted by Doongaji, identified as Exhibit P-6, included separate flat rates for each individual year in addition to the aggregate rate. Doongaji explained that he had consulted Mr. Munshi, who was the Personal Assistant to the Excise Commissioner, to determine whether he should quote a rate for each year separately. Mr. Munshi advised him that the tender could contain a flat rate for the combined years, individual flat rates for each year, and also sliding-scale rates for each year if he so desired.

The record shows that the individual referred to as accused 2 was acting as an agent for Habibur Rahman and his son Zakirur Rahman in connection with the distillery contracts for Betul and Seoni. Consequently, the Court inferred that accused 2 must have been the author not only of his own tender but also of the tenders submitted on behalf of Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman, namely Exhibits P-4 and P-5. All three parties were cooperating with the shared objective of obtaining the contract, even though they submitted three separate tenders. The trial magistrate observed that while Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman complied with the notice by quoting a single flat rate for four years, accused 2, who had prepared all the tenders, deviated in Exhibit P-3A by following Doongaji’s approach of providing both the combined four-year rate and the separate yearly rates. The magistrate concluded that accused 2 must have done so because he had been shown Exhibit P-6.

The Court then considered whether the fact that accused Patel, Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman acted together created a necessary inference that Patel was the author of all three tenders and that, if he were the author, he could not have altered the method used in Exhibits P-4 and P-5 unless he had first seen Exhibit P-6. The Court held that such an inference does not necessarily follow from the premises. It noted that even after examining Exhibit P-9, Doongaji himself was uncertain whether to submit a single flat rate for the whole four-year period or to provide separate flat rates for each year, and he therefore sought clarification from the Excise Commissioner’s office before deciding to quote separate rates. Consequently, the Court rejected the proposition that the mere collaboration of the parties compelled the conclusion that Patel must have authored all three tenders and that his departure from the method used in Exhibits P-4 and P-5 required prior knowledge of Exhibit P-6.

Patel, who admittedly possessed considerable experience with distillery contracts and with the manner in which tenders were normally submitted, could reasonably have concluded that it would be advisable to quote a single flat rate that applied to all four years as well as to provide a separate flat rate for each individual year. The fact that Patel did not adopt this dual-rate approach in the other two tenders that he prepared does not, in the eyes of the Court, strengthen the prosecution’s case. The purpose of filing multiple tenders on behalf of three persons who acted together was precisely to convey to the excise authorities that each tender originated from a different individual. Had the tenders been identical, the very objective of demonstrating separate submissions would have been defeated. Moreover, the slight difference that exists between Exhibit P-3A and Exhibits P-4 and P-5 is not of such an unusual or extraordinary character that it permits the inference that such a variation could only have arisen after a review of Doongaji’s tender. The Court regarded this circumstance as neutral. It held that the trial magistrate and the learned Sessions Judge had accorded it undue weight, being overly convinced that a contractor could not mention a flat rate for each year in a tender merely by constructing Exhibit P-9 without conducting further inquiry or without having seen another tender that employed the same method.

The next point upon which the prosecution relied was that the second accused consistently kept his quoted rates below those of Doongaji throughout the tendering period; specifically, when Doongaji reduced his rates for the second year, the second accused did the same, and when Doongaji increased his rates for the third and fourth years, the second accused also raised his rates, while still remaining lower than Doongaji’s. It was alleged that the pricing system originally followed by Habibur Rahman, Zakirur Rahman and Patel must have been identical because Patel authored all three tenders. The prosecution further claimed that Habibur Rahman’s rates exceeded Zakirur Rahman’s by six pies continuously, and that, under Patel’s original tender—presumed to follow the same system—Patel’s rates would have been three pies lower than Habibur Rahman’s throughout. Exhibit P-3A, however, contradicted this assertion. The Court noted that Patel abandoned the original pricing scheme when he realized that his rates under that scheme would be higher than the corresponding rates quoted by Doongaji. The learned Advocate General argued that Patel could not have quoted rates for the approximately 197 items, each lower than those in Exhibit P-6, unless he had first examined Exhibit P-6. The Advocate General further contended that the fact Patel never quoted a single rate higher than those in Exhibit P-6 was conclusive proof that he had prepared his tender after seeing Exhibit P-6.

In this case, the Court observed that there was no satisfactory explanation for why Patel abandoned the scheme that he had employed in preparing Exhibits P-4 and P-5 as well as his original tender. The Court held that this circumstance was not as mysterious or unusual as the learned Advocate-General or the lower courts had suggested. First, the Court found that there was no material evidence to support the assumption that the so-called original tender had been drawn up using the same method as Exhibits P-4 and P-5, nor was there any proof of a constant variation in rates between that tender and the tender submitted by Habibur Rahman. The inference that the first five rates shown in Exhibit P-3A represented the rates originally quoted was based merely on conjecture. Moreover, the original tender itself had not been produced, and no evidence existed regarding its actual contents.

Second, the Court relied on the deposition of Doongaji, which revealed that in the year 1942, when tenders for the Seoni distillery contract were invited, the rates quoted by Ratanshah were lower than Doongaji’s rates for every item. Ratanshah voluntarily explained that he had obtained the rates from his earlier contracts before submitting his 1942 tender and that he had reduced those rates by two to three annas. He further conceded that his tender rates were not only lower than Doongaji’s but were also uniformly lower than the rates of Laxminarain, Haji Ismail and Habibur Rahman, even though he had not examined their tenders. From this statement, the Court concluded that a contractor could, without reference to other competitors’ tenders, calculate and quote rock-bottom rates for all items if he wished to secure the contract.

Third, the Court questioned why Patel could not have taken the same approach in 1946 that Ratanshah had taken in 1942. The Court explained that if a person intends to submit the lowest possible rates and his own calculations result in rates that are lower than those of other bidders, there is no impediment to quoting lower rates for every item. The Court then addressed the allegation that Patel had followed a particular plan in submitting three tenders—one in his own name, one in the name of Habibur Rahman and one in the name of Zakirur Rahman—stating that his plan was to have his own rates lower by three pies compared with the rates quoted for Habibur Rahman. According to the allegation, Patel adhered to this plan for the first five items of Exhibit 145, leaving those rates unchanged because they were already lower than Doongaji’s rates. However, from the sixth item onward, Patel allegedly substituted new rates, thereby departing from the original plan and ensuring that his rates for each subsequent item were lower only by three pies relative to Habibur Rahman’s rates. It is no

In this case the Court examined whether the fact that Patel failed to follow the pricing plan he had set for the first five items of his tender could be used to infer that those items belonged to his original submission or that he altered them after having seen Exhibit P-6 in order to underbid Doongaji. The Court first noted that the purpose of filing three apparently separate tenders, although the persons named were acting together, was to try to obtain the contract in one name or another. Patel, who prepared all three documents, could therefore have placed substantially lower figures in his own tender than those quoted by Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman so as to create the impression that the tenders were not the work of a single individual. Nevertheless, a detailed comparison of the rates quoted by Doongaji and those quoted by Patel disproved the view advanced by the lower courts. The rates in the first five items of Exhibit P-145 were lower than Doongaji’s rates by 102, 69, 18, 12 and 9 pies respectively. In the later items, except for one instance where the difference was only two pies, the gap between Patel’s rates and Doongaji’s rates ranged from nine to eleven pies. The Court observed that Patel was a businessman whose primary aim in setting his rates was to maximise profit. If Patel had examined Doongaji’s tender, he would have adjusted his pricing to achieve the greatest possible margin. The learned Advocate-General could not provide any reason why Patel would keep his quotation for 50,000 gallons at Rs 2-10-6 when Doongaji’s rate was Rs 3-3-0, since Patel could easily have raised his quote to Rs 3 and, in the other items, could have underbid Doongaji by only two, three or six pies. There was therefore no necessity for Patel to maintain a disparity of nine to eleven pies. Consequently, the Court held that no inference of guilt could be drawn from the differences between the rates of Doongaji, Patel, or the apparent uniformity among the rates of Habibur Rahman and R.S. Patel that would demonstrate that Exhibit P-3A had been prepared after consulting Exhibit P-6. The Court also considered the argument that some rates in Exhibit P-3A were lower than the corresponding rates in Exhibit P-6 by merely one or two pies. While it was undisputed that a few rates were indeed lower by two pies, the Court stressed that this innocent fact could not lead to any conclusion of wrongdoing unless one began with a presumption of guilt. Assuming that Patel had seen Doongaji’s tender, such circumstances might appear to fit the alleged pattern, but the Court declined to accept that assumption as a basis for finding a criminal act.

In this case, the Court observed that the accusation was premised on the view that, in certain respects, the document identified as Exhibit P-3A might have been copied from Exhibit P-6. The Court noted that the lower courts had erred by departing from the fundamental principle that, in a criminal proceeding, an accused person is presumed innocent and that the prosecution bears the burden of proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The next argument presented concerned the covering letter labelled Exhibit P-3, which was submitted by Patel and which referenced three appendices numbered 1, 2 and 3. It was contended that the same phrasing appeared in the covering letters identified as Exhibit P-4 of Habibur Rahman and Exhibit P~5 of Zakirur Rahman, and that the appendices 1 to a of the tenders of Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman correctly corresponded to the references in those covering letters, whereas Patel’s documents did not conform to that pattern.

The submission further argued that, instead of a single appendix 1, Patel’s document listed appendix 1 (a) and appendix 1 (b), thereby increasing the total number of appendices to four, and that this deviation from the format used in Exhibits P-4 and P-5 was the result of Patel having examined Exhibit P-6 and the number of appendices attached to it. It was also urged that the original tender prepared by Patel should have contained three appendices, similar to those of Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman, and that the presence of appendix 1 (a) and 1 (b) indicated substitution of the tender. The learned magistrate, the Court held, gave undue importance to this circumstance and consequently misled himself.

In the first place, the Court found it inaccurate to claim that the expression “appendices 1, 2 and 3” was common to the covering letters of Exhibits P-4 and P-5, because Exhibit P-5 actually marks its appendices as A, B and C. Accordingly, no uniform method of labeling the appendices was employed by Patel, nor by the tenders reflected in Exhibits P-4 and P-5. Secondly, the Court observed that there was no conflict in the way the appendices of Habibur Rahman and Patel were described; both parties used the numbering 1, 2 and 3, and merely subdividing the first appendix into (a) and (b) could not be regarded as a departure from the method of describing the appendices. Moreover, Patel’s covering letter explicitly mentioned four appendices, whereas the covering letters of Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman each referred to only three appendices.

The trial magistrate and the Sessions Judge, the Court noted, disregarded these differences in the description of the appendices and assumed a uniform description across the documents. As a result, the Court concluded that the so-called peculiar features identified by the lower courts in Exhibit P-3A should be excluded from consideration, and that there were no circumstances that rendered Exhibit P-3A inconsistent with being a genuine document. The Court held that Exhibit P-3A could have been prepared without reference to Exhibit P-6. Consequently, the foundation of the lower courts’ judgments was seen to collapse, and, in the absence of any evidence of motive, the Court was of the opinion that the facts did not justify a conviction.

The Court concluded that, upon any just or legal assessment, the material facts did not justify a conviction, and although the trial proceedings were considered procedurally sound, the Court declared that a serious miscarriage of justice had taken place. Accordingly, the Court set aside the convictions of both appellants on the second charge and ordered that they be acquitted. In order to evaluate the third charge, the Court found it necessary to reproduce the contents of Exhibit P-24, a document alleged to have been antedated so as to fabricate evidence for the defence of the accused and to injure Amarnath. The letter is headed “Congress Nagar, Nagpur, 20th November, 1946” and addressed to the Commissioner of Excise, C.P. & Berar, Nagpur. It reads: “Dear Sir, I beg to submit a few of my complaints for such action as you may be pleased to take, which are as under. I went to see Mr Amarnath last week, at his residence in connection with Seoni Distillery work. I saw Mr Edulji and his partner with Mr Amarnath in the office room of his residence with some office files. From the papers I could recognize my tender open on the table in front of them. As soon as I went there, all of them were astonished and they could not speak with me for a moment, and then they carried on some dry general conversation with me. In the same way, after about a week, when I went to Seoni for mahua bill, when Mr Amarnath visited for sanctioning the advance, I had the opportunity to see Mr Amarnath in the dak bungalow at about 9-30 p.m. when I saw Mr Mehta, the ex-manager of Mr Edulji (who is also the manager of Seoni Electric Co.), with Mr Amarnath near a table with the same file of the tender. No doubt, after seeing the above two incidents I requested Mr Amarnath to be fair in this affair. I am bringing these incidents to your notice, as I fear that something underhand may be going on, and I am afraid that my tender may be tampered with. Hoping to get justice, yours faithfully, Sd. R.S. Patel.” The heading line “Congress Nagar, Nagpur, 20th November, 1946” appears in the writer’s hand, whereas the remainder of the letter is typed. Close visual inspection shows that the digit “6” in the year 1946 was overwritten on a previously written “7” in continental script, indicating that the writer initially wrote “7” and then altered it to “6”. The learned Advocate General, relying on the findings of the lower courts, contended that the letter was actually composed during the investigation in July or August 1947 and was antedated to implicate Amarnath and to be used as defensive evidence. The issue before the Court was whether any evidence existed to prove such antedating. The Court observed that it could locate no documentary or testimonial proof on the record to establish that the date had been manipulated. Conversely, the intrinsic characteristics of the letter—its handwriting, the overwritten numeral, and the contemporaneous references within its text—strongly suggested that the document was most likely produced on the date it bears.

In this case the Court observed that the letter in question was created on the date it displayed, namely 20 November 1946. The factual background disclosed that the tenders for the contract were opened by the accused Nargundkar on 11 November 1946; after making the necessary endorsements he handed the opened tenders to Amarnath, who was then required to file a report concerning them. The letter alleged that during the “last week,” interpreted as the week beginning on 11 November 1946, the accused Patel visited Amarnath. During that visit Patel reportedly saw Edulji Doongaji present with Amarnath, with Doongaji’s tender opened and placed on the table before him, an observation that reportedly astonished Patel. The letter further claimed that approximately a week later Patel travelled again to Seoni, where he again encountered Amarnath, this time accompanied by Mr Mehta, the former manager of Edulji Doongaji, and where the tender file was allegedly found lying open. The author of the letter asserted that he had implored Amarnath to conduct the matter fairly, requested the Commissioner to ensure that Patel’s tender was not tampered with, and sought justice. The overall purpose of the letter was presented as a safeguard for the author against any clandestine manipulation in the award of the contract.

Patel’s statement recorded under section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code stated that he saw Amarnath on the morning of 15 or 16 November 1946, that he met Amarnath at the Seoni distillery premises on 16 November 1946, and that later on the same day he encountered Amarnath again at about 9 p.m. at the Seoni dak bungalow. Patel further testified that he met Amarnath once more on 17 November 1946 at 10 a.m. and that he also visited Amarnath’s residence in Nagpur on several occasions between 12 November and 18 November 1946. The learned Advocate-General argued that Patel’s testimony conflicted with the narrative set out in Exhibit P-24. The Court, however, found no inconsistency between Patel’s recollection and the recitals in the exhibit. The Court explained that if Patel saw Amarnath on 12 November, a letter dated 20 November could correctly describe that encounter as having occurred “last week.” The subsequent claim in the letter that Patel saw Amarnath again about a week later aligns with the testimony that Patel met Amarnath on 16 or 17 November, which is roughly one week after the initial visit. Consequently, the Court held that drawing an adverse inference against Patel on the basis of a minor discrepancy in the description of dates, and concluding that Patel had actually seen Amarnath on 9 November 1946, would be an unnecessary stretching of the evidence. The Court further noted that, whether true or false, the statements in the letter are compatible with the letter being dated 20 November 1946. Although the magistrate had observed that the vague reference to “the week” suggested that the allegations might be unreliable, the Court was unable to discern how such vagueness could substantiate the magistrate’s conclusion. The discussion also referenced the emphasis placed on the overwriting of the numeral 6 over a previously written 7, a point that the Court examined elsewhere.

The Court observed that the manuscript part of the letter showed an overwriting where the numeral 7 had been replaced by the numeral 6. It was argued that, after a change of year, a person normally develops a subconscious habit of writing the correct year automatically, and that this habit would have caused the correct year to be entered when the date was written in the letter marked as Exhibit P-24. The argument further claimed that the later alteration to the figure 6 indicated that the letter had actually been written sometime in 1947. The Court considered this line of reasoning to be speculative. It noted that the mistake could have been made inadvertently and corrected immediately, and that such inadvertent errors and subsequent corrections are neither rare nor unusual in official documents. The Court referred to paragraph 93 of the learned Sessions Judge’s judgment, which recorded that the appellants had produced a file labelled Exhibit ID-35 containing pages 9 and 10. On page 10 there were two office notes, one signed by A.M. Naidu and the other by the appellant Nargundkar. Below his signature, A.M. Naidu wrote “6-4-1948” while Nargundkar wrote “6-4-1947”. Other notes in the same file showed that the correct date for both signatures should have been 6th August 1947, thereby demonstrating two errors in the month and one error in the year. The Court accepted that such mistakes are possible, but emphasized that the presence of other evidence is necessary to determine what inferences may be drawn from them.

The Court then stated that it had examined the record for any additional evidence that could establish that the letter was not written on the date it bears. It found none. Even Gadgil could not explain why he had asserted that the letter was written in July 1946, and the Court concluded that his statement was not truthful. The endorsement on the letter by the accused Nargundkar was clearly dated 21st November 1946. The Court reasoned that if the letter had not been delivered to him on the date of the endorsement but had been received several months later, he would ordinarily have made a notation either on the letter itself or in the receipt register of his office at the time of receipt. It was further noted that the letter was not placed in the file of tenders that were kept separate, although the Commissioner had directed that the letter be filed and had sent it to the office. The Court held that, from this circumstance, no adverse inference could be drawn regarding the date shown on the letter. Finally, the Court observed that no forger would correct the year from 1947 to 1946 in such a clumsy manner while leaving the original figure “7” visible, as this would leave the alteration conspicuously suspicious on the document itself.

In this case, the Court observed that the figure “7” on the contested document remained undisturbed, which displayed its suspicious nature openly. The Court noted that there was no urgency that compelled the accused to make the alteration, and that a second letter without any alteration could have been typed easily. The defence argued that the letter had not been typed on the office typewriter known as article B, which was in use at that time, but rather on another typewriter referred to as article A, which had not reached Nagpur until the end of 1946. To support this claim, the trial proceeded with the testimony of certain experts. The Court affirmed the earlier finding of the High Court that the opinions of those experts were not admissible under the Indian Evidence Act because they did not fall within the scope of section 45 of that Act. That position of the High Court was not contested before this Court. The Court found it unusual that, although the High Court had ruled the expert testimony inadmissible, the learned High Court judge nevertheless discussed it and placed some reliance upon it. The trial magistrate and the learned Sessions Judge had nevertheless used that inadmissible evidence to reach the conclusion that, since the letter was supposedly typed on article A, which had only arrived in Nagpur at the end of December 1946, the document must have been antedated. Because their conclusion rested on evidence that was not admissible, the Court held that it must be disregarded. The trial court also held that the expert testimony was corroborated by statements of the accused recorded under section 342. The accused, Patel, when questioned about the letter, gave a statement indicating that Exhibit P-31 had been typed on the office typewriter article B, while Exhibit P-24, described as his personal complaint letter, had been typed by his personal assistant on one of the typewriters that had been brought into the office for trial purposes with a view to purchase. He further explained that no copy of that personal complaint was kept in the correspondence files, just as no copy of his tender Exhibit P-3A was retained. He added that in September, October and November 1945 several machines had been brought for trial from various parties in the office until the typewriter article A was eventually purchased by National Industrial Alcohol Ltd. Company. The Court noted that if the experts’ testimony is excluded, there is no material on record to establish that Exhibit P-24 was typed on article A. The trial magistrate and the Sessions Judge had, however, taken a portion of Patel’s statement and inferred that because the letter had not been typed on article B, it must therefore have been typed on article A. The Court held that such selective use of the accused’s statement was wholly unwarranted. Established law requires that an admission made by a person, whether it amounts to a confession or not, cannot be divided and used in fragments against that person; an admission must be taken either in its entirety or not at all. If the whole statement were considered, it would destroy the prosecution’s case; if it were not considered, then no material remains from which any inference could be drawn that the letter was dated earlier than the date it bears.

The Court observed that if the statement of the accused were not used at all, the record would contain no material from which any inference could be drawn that the letter bore a date earlier than the one printed on it. Accordingly, for the reasons set out in the preceding discussion, the Court held that the evidence on record did not establish that Exhibit P-24 was antedated. Because the allegation of antedating could not be proved, the charge of forgery relating to that letter could not stand. When the Court examined the letter in its entirety, it concluded that the document was not written with the purpose of causing injury to Amarnath nor was it intended to create a defence against the second charge. The Court described the letter as an innocuous piece of writing whose principal purpose was to protect the interests of the accused Patel and to shield him from any dishonest or unfair conduct by rival contractors. Although Patel made certain allegations against Amarnath in an effort to safeguard himself, the Court found no evidence of an intention to defraud or to cause harm to Amarnath. In view of these findings, the Court set aside the convictions of both appellants on the third charge and acquitted them of that offence. The consolidated appeal was therefore allowed, the judgments of the three lower courts were annulled, and the appellants were discharged. The agents representing the appellants in Criminal Appeal No 56 of 1951 and Criminal Appeal No S7 of 1951 were identified as Ganpat Rai and Rajinder Narain respectively, while the respondent was represented by P.A. Mehta.