Hanumant vs The State Of Madhya Pradesh
Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.
Court: Supreme Court of India
Case Number: Not extracted
Decision Date: 23 September, 1952
Coram: Mehr Chand Mahajan
In this case, the Supreme Court of India noted that the matter was a consolidated appeal filed by special leave from two orders of the High Court of Judicature at Nagpur, both of which were issued on 9 March 1950 and were recorded as Criminal Revisions Nos 152 and 153 of 1949. The appeal arose from a complaint lodged by the Assistant Inspector-General of Police of the Anti-Corruption Department in Nagpur, which led to the trial of two individuals in the court of Shri B. K. Chaudhri, who was a Special Magistrate at Nagpur. The first trial participant, who was the appellant in Criminal Appeal No 56 of 1951, was H. G. Nargundkar, who held the position of Excise Commissioner, Madhya Pradesh. The second trial participant, who was the appellant in Criminal Appeal No 57 of 1951, was R. S. Patel. Both were tried for the offence of conspiracy to obtain the contract for the Seoni Distillery for the period from April 1947 to March 1951 by forging the tender identified as Exhibit P-3A, and for the separate offences of forging that same tender (Exhibit P-3A) and forging another document identified as Exhibit P-24. The Special Magistrate found both appellants guilty on all three counts. He imposed rigorous imprisonment of one year on each charge against R. S. Patel and ordered him to pay fines of Rs 2,000, Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000 respectively for the first, second and third charges. The magistrate sentenced Nargundkar to rigorous imprisonment of six months on each charge and directed him to pay the same schedule of fines—Rs 2,000, Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000 for the three charges. Both convicted persons appealed their convictions and sentences to the Sessions Judge of Nagpur. The Sessions Judge set aside the conviction of each appellant under the first charge of criminal conspiracy, which was based on Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, but upheld the convictions and sentences under Section 465 of the Indian Penal Code for the forgery of Exhibits P-3A and P-24. The appellants then sought revision of the Sessions Judge’s decision before the High Court, but their revision petitions were dismissed. Consequently, an application for special leave to appeal was made under Article 136 of the Constitution of India, and the Supreme Court granted the leave on 24 March 1950.
The first appellant, Nargundkar, was a member of the Central Provinces & Berar Provincial Service and had served in the substantive post of Deputy Commissioner for several years. In April 1946, he received the appointment of Excise Commissioner for Madhya Pradesh and continued to occupy that office until 5 September 1947. The second appellant, Patel, was a sugar technologist and chemical engineer who had obtained his technical education and practical training in the United States of America. After completing his training, he worked as Chief Chemist and General Manager in factories located in Madras for five years before moving to the Central Provinces in 1944. At that time, the Provincial Government granted him a licence authorising the establishment of a distillery for the manufacture of industrial spirit. On 11 September 1946, acting in his official capacity as Excise Commissioner, Nargundkar issued a public invitation for tenders to operate the Government distillery at Seoni and to supply spirit to specified districts for a period of four years commencing on 1 April 1947 and ending on 31 March 1951.
The tender notice authorised the supply of spirit to certain specified districts for a period of four years commencing on 1 April 1947 and ending on 31 March 1951. The final date for the submission of tenders was fixed as 31 October 1946. In response to the notice five separate tenders were lodged. Among these were tenders submitted by the appellant, R. S. Patel; by K. B. Habibur Rahman; by Zakirur Rahman; and by Edulji P. Doongaji (identified as PW 4). All of the tenders were placed in sealed covers and delivered to the Excise Commissioner on 31 October 1946. The Commissioner, after receiving the sealed submissions, handed them over, with the seals intact, to the office superintendent, S. W. Gadgil (PW 13), for safe custody. Gadgil then transferred the sealed envelopes to his own room and stored them under lock and key in the office safe.
The prosecution alleged that on 9 November 1946 the accused Nargundkar removed the sealed tenders from the office safe and took them to his home, where he opened the envelopes. The prosecution further claimed that Nargundkar disclosed the rates contained in the tender of E. J. Doongaji (PW 4) to the second accused, R. S. Patel, and that Patel was consequently permitted to substitute a new tender (Exhibit P-3A) presenting rates lower than those submitted by Doongaji. After being opened, the tenders were said to have been returned to the office on 11 November 1946 and given to Amarnath (PW 20), the Assistant Commissioner of Excise, for the preparation of a report. On the basis of Nargundkar’s recommendation, the tender submitted by Patel was accepted and the contract awarded to him. In May 1947, following an application (Exhibit P-1) from a person named Dilbagrai (PW 14), the Anti-Corruption Department commenced an inquiry, which the two accused learned of. In an attempt to fabricate evidence in their favour, they purportedly created a letter (Exhibit P-24) and back-dated it to 20 November 1946. The letter was alleged to have been forged with the purpose of committing fraud and causing injury to Amarnath (PW 20) and to Doongaji (PW 4). It was further alleged that Exhibit P-24 was typed on a typewriter (Article A) that had been purchased on 30 December 1946 by the National Industrial Alcohol Co., Nagpur, of which Patel was the managing director. The prosecution claimed that the endorsement in the letter, reading “No action seems necessary. File” and marked to Superintendent “S”, was not actually made on the date of 21 November 1946 that it bore. According to the charge, Nargundkar handed this letter to the office superintendent, S. W. Gadgil (PW 13), in mid-August 1947, and subsequently, on 2 October 1947, Nargundkar wrote another letter (Exhibit P-26) to Sri S. Sanyal (PW 19), then Excise Commissioner, requesting that Exhibit P-24 together with a note sheet (Exhibit P-27) be placed in safe custody. Both accused denied the commission of the offences of criminal conspiracy, forgery and abetment thereof. Nargundkar specifically denied having attended the office on 9 November 1946 and refuted the allegation that he had taken the tenders home.
Accused 2 testified that he had opened the tenders in the office on 11 November 1946. He denied that the tender of Doongaji had been shown to him by accused 1 during the period between 9 November and 11 November 1946, and asserted that the document labelled Exhibit P-3A was the original tender he himself had submitted on 31 October 1946. Regarding Exhibit P-24, accused 2 refuted any suggestion that it had been fabricated or antedated, and further maintained that it had not been typed on article A. Nevertheless, he claimed that the statements contained in Exhibit P-24 were accurate. Accused Nargundkar (accused 1) contended that he had made the endorsement on 21 November 1946. Since the first charge had been dismissed, the Court noted that no further discussion of that charge was required. The prosecution, in order to establish the second charge, needed to prove a series of facts: first, that Gadgil, P.W. 13, had delivered the sealed tenders to 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 Patel’s residence or elsewhere; and fourth, that Nargundkar had shown or communicated the details of Doongaji’s tender to Patel, enabling Patel to replace Exhibit P-3A with his own tender before 11 November 1946. The Court observed that there was no direct evidence to substantiate any of these points apart from the first, and that the nature of the case required reliance upon circumstantial evidence to infer the remaining facts. The only proof that the sealed tenders were handed over by Gadgil to Nargundkar on 9 November rested on Gadgil’s uncorroborated testimony, which stood opposed to Nargundkar’s denial. Gadgil himself was a suspect in the matter. He had been removed from the office by the police for approximately eight months during the investigation, placed on leave at the police’s request, and his leave subsequently extended. Upon the expiry of his leave he was kept off-duty without salary for about five months, but later received full salary after he testified in support of the prosecution. The Court noted that Gadgil’s statements contained additions and improvements at various stages of his deposition, and that certain particulars of his account were contradicted by the testimony of Ramaswami, P.W. 30. Gadgil admitted that he was an accomplice in the forgery of Exhibit P-27, a document alleged to have been forged for the defence, although no prosecution was initiated for that alleged offence. Exhibit P-27 bears the date 31 October 1946. In Gadgil’s own words, “He (Nargundkar) put down his signature and the date 31 October 1946. This order was actually written by Shri 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.”
Gadgil stated that the note-sheet bearing the date 31st October 1946 was not actually prepared on that day and that he was asked to keep it in his custody. He further admitted that he became a party to the preparation of a forged document. Whether his statements were truthful or false appeared, from his cross-examination, to be doubtful, and in either case he could not be regarded as a reliable source. The Court noted with surprise that none of the three lower courts had drawn any attention to this particular aspect of Gadgil’s evidence.
The Court explained that when the trial court and the appellate court reach identical findings of fact based on a witness’s testimony, the Supreme Court ordinarily does not interfere, except in very exceptional circumstances. However, if a finding of fact rests on the testimony of a witness of Gadgil’s character, and the lower courts depart from the prudent rule that such testimony should not be accepted unless it is corroborated by other evidence, the Supreme Court may review the finding, even on special leave, when the surrounding circumstances indicate a substantial and grave injustice. After a complete examination of the material on record, the Court concluded that the lower courts erred in accepting Gadgil’s uncorroborated testimony to the effect that he had handed the tenders to Nargundkar on 9th November 1946. The witness had not been allowed to testify in a free atmosphere; he had been kept under police surveillance throughout the investigation and trial, and he received his full salary only after giving evidence that satisfied the prosecution. He openly declared on oath that he willingly participated in the forgery of Exhibit P-27, showing no hesitation in admitting his involvement.
The Court then considered the prosecution’s case. Assuming that the accused, Nargundkar, had taken the tenders to his residence, the prosecution had not yet proved the additional facts necessary to establish his guilt. No direct evidence had been produced to substantiate those facts. The prosecution and the lower courts had relied instead on certain circumstances and on intrinsic evidence contained in the impugned document, Exhibit P-3A. The Court reminded that when dealing with circumstantial evidence, the special rules applicable to such evidence must be kept in mind. In these situations there is always a danger that conjecture or suspicion may replace legal proof. Accordingly, the Court recalled the warning given by Baron Alderson to the jury in Reg v Hodge (1838) 2 Lew 227, cautioning that the mind may be inclined to adapt or even stretch circumstances to form a connected whole, thereby risking an unjust conclusion.
In discussing the dangers of relying on circumstantial evidence, the Court reiterated Baron Alderson’s warning that a person’s mind may be inclined to fill gaps with imagined links that fit an existing theory, thereby overreaching and misleading itself. The Court emphasized that, where evidence is purely circumstantial, the facts from which a finding of guilt is to be drawn must first be fully established and must align exclusively with the hypothesis that the accused committed the offence. Moreover, each circumstance must be conclusive and must eliminate every alternative explanation except the one proposed for proof. In effect, the prosecution must produce a chain of evidence so complete that no reasonable basis remains for a conclusion compatible with the accused’s innocence, and the chain must demonstrate that, on the balance of probability, the accused performed the act. Despite the forceful submissions of the learned Advocate-General on behalf of the State, the Court was unable to locate any such intrinsic or extrinsic evidence, either within Exhibit P-3A or outside it. Consequently, the Court observed that the lower courts had fallen into the very error warned against by Baron Alderson, because they relied on conjecture rather than on proof that satisfied the stringent requirements for circumstantial proof.
The trial magistrate had held that a swiftly developing friendship between the two accused created a close and intimate relationship, and that accused 2 possessed the ability to influence accused 1, thereby providing a motive for the alleged crime. This view was rejected by the learned Sessions Judge, a decision that was affirmed by the High Court. The higher courts observed that the evidence presented to demonstrate friendship or undue favour was insufficient to form the basis of a finding of motive. They further found no indication that the appellant, Nargundkar, obtained any illegal reward or promise of reward for presenting Doongaji’s tender to accused R. S. Patel. Consequently, the principal circumstance on which the trial magistrate had heavily relied was negated by the appellate courts. With the finding that no motive existed for Nargundkar to show the tenders to Patel or to accept a substituted tender, the critical link in the trial court’s reasoning collapsed. The Court noted that merely amicable or official relations between the accused could not, by themselves, constitute a sufficient motive for the offence of forgery. The prosecution’s case principally rested on the intrinsic contents of Exhibit P-3A, which the lower courts described as unusual, peculiar and strange, and which the Advocate-General asserted could not be present if the document were genuine. The
In this matter, the Court observed that any argument would acquire strength only if the underlying assumptions were proved correct. After a careful review of the document labeled Exhibit P-3A, the Court found that the contents did not display any feature that could be described as highly unusual or extraordinary. Moreover, nothing in Exhibit P-3A indicated that its author could not have prepared it without having examined Exhibit P-6. Consequently, the premise that the author must have seen Exhibit P-6 in order to produce Exhibit P-3A was not sustained by the evidence.
The Court then turned to a detailed examination of the features that had been described as “peculiar” in Exhibit P-3A. To understand the arguments presented by the learned Advocate-General, it was necessary first to set out the factual background. Exhibit P-9 constituted a formal notice inviting tenders for the supply of country spirit within the Seoni distillery jurisdiction. The notice specified several categories of rates that bidders could propose. These categories were: a flat rate applicable for a period of four years; rates calculated on a sliding scale for the same four-year period; an all-in rate on the sliding scale for the single fiscal year 1947-48; flat rates determined on the basis of the price of mahua flowers for each of the three years spanning 1948-1951; and an all-in sliding-scale rate also based on the price of mahua flowers for those three years.
The trial magistrate interpreted the notice in a particular way, concluding that it did not require bidders to submit separate rates for each individual year. Instead, the magistrate held that the notice sought a single flat rate covering the entire four-year term. In accordance with this interpretation, the tenders submitted by Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman, identified as Exhibits P-4 and P-5 respectively, each quoted only one flat rate for the whole four-year period and made no reference to distinct yearly rates. By contrast, the tender submitted by Doongaji, shown as Exhibit P-6, provided separate flat rates for each individual year. Doongaji had arrived at this approach after consulting Mr. Munshi, who served as the Personal Assistant to the Excise Commissioner. Mr. Munshi informed Doongaji that the notice permitted the bidder to present a flat rate for the combined four years as well as separate flat rates, and even sliding-scale rates, for each individual year.
The Court noted that the individual identified as accused 2 functioned as an agent on behalf of both Habibur Rahman and his son Zakirur Rahman in relation to the distillery contracts for the Betul and Seoni areas. Accordingly, the Court inferred that accused 2 was not only the author of his own tender but also the drafter of the tenders submitted by Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman, which are recorded as Exhibits P-4 and P-5. All three parties acted in concert with the common objective of securing the contract, even though they submitted three distinct tenders. The trial magistrate observed that, while Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman complied with the notice by offering a single flat rate for the four-year span, accused 2, when preparing Exhibit P-3A, deviated from that pattern. Instead of following the format prescribed by the notice, accused 2 adopted the method employed by Doongaji, presenting both the rates for each individual year and the aggregate rate for the four-year period. The magistrate inferred that such a deviation could only have occurred because accused 2 had been shown Exhibit P-6, which demonstrated the alternative method.
The pivotal question that arose from these observations concerned whether the fact that Patel, alongside Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman, acted jointly created a necessary inference that Patel must have been the author of all three tenders. Moreover, the Court considered whether, if Patel were indeed the author, he could have departed from the method used in the other two tenders without having first examined Exhibit P-6. The Court indicated that these issues required careful assessment of the surrounding circumstances before any definitive conclusion could be drawn.
In considering whether the accused Patel could have prepared Exhibits P-4 and P-5 without having seen Exhibit P-6, the Court expressed the view that the inference drawn by the lower courts was not compelled by the material before them. The Court observed that even Doongaji, after examining Exhibit P-9, remained uncertain as to whether to submit a tender containing a single flat rate for the entire four-year period or to provide separate flat rates for each individual year. Consequently, Doongaji sought clarification from the Excise Commissioner’s office and subsequently quoted distinct rates for each of the four years. Patel, who possessed considerable experience in distillery contracts and in the tendering process, could just as plausibly have concluded that it was advisable to quote both a uniform flat rate covering all four years and separate flat rates for each year. The fact that Patel did not adopt this dual-rate approach in the other two tenders he prepared does not, in the Court’s opinion, lend any substantive assistance to the prosecution’s case. The purpose of submitting multiple tenders on behalf of three individuals acting in concert was precisely to convey to the excise authorities that the tenders originated from three separate persons. Had the tenders been identical, the very rationale for filing them would have been defeated. Moreover, the Court held that a minor variation of the sort observed between Exhibits P-3A, P-4 and P-5 does not rise to the level of an unusual or extraordinary circumstance that would justify the inference that such a variation could only have been made after examining Doongaji’s tender. The circumstances were deemed neutral, and the trial magistrate and the learned Sessions Judge were found to have accorded them undue weight, being preoccupied with the notion that a contractor could not quote separate annual flat rates merely by interpreting Exhibit P-9 without further inquiry or without having seen another tender that employed the same method.
The Court next examined the reliance placed on the pattern of rates maintained by accused 2 in relation to the rates quoted by Doongaji. It was noted that accused 2 consistently kept his rates below those of Doongaji throughout the tendering period; when Doongaji reduced his rates for the second year, accused 2 mirrored that reduction, and when Doongaji increased his rates for the third and fourth years, accused 2 likewise raised his rates at the same time while still remaining lower than Doongaji’s. The prosecution suggested that the system originally used by Habibur Rahman, Zakirur Rahman and Patel must have been the same, asserting that Patel, as the author of all three tenders, had set Habibur Rahman’s rates six pies higher than Zakirur Rahman’s rates, a difference that remained constant. The prosecution further alleged that, under Patel’s original tender, his own rates would have been three pies lower than Habibur Rahman’s throughout. However, the Court observed that Exhibit P-3A contradicts this assertion, showing that Patel’s rates were not lower in the manner alleged. Consequently, the Court concluded that Patel abandoned the original rating scheme when he realized that his rates, if applied according to that scheme, would have been higher than the corresponding rates quoted by Doongaji. This abandonment, the Court held, does not constitute a peculiar or inexplicable act requiring the inference that Patel must have consulted Exhibit P-6 before preparing his tenders.
The learned Advocate-General argued that it was impossible for Patel to have quoted rates lower than those shown in Exhibit P-6 for a large number of items—approximately one hundred ninety-seven—unless he had first examined Exhibit P-6. He further contended that the fact Patel never quoted a rate higher than any rate in Exhibit P-6 was conclusive proof that Patel must have seen that exhibit before preparing his own tender. The Advocate-General also pointed out that there was no satisfactory explanation as to why Patel abandoned the scheme he had employed in preparing Exhibits P-4 and P-5 and his original tender. In the Court’s view, however, this circumstance was neither strange nor peculiar as the learned Advocate-General and the lower courts had suggested. Firstly, there was no material to support the assumption that the so-called original tender was drawn up on the same basis as Exhibits P-4 and P-5, nor was there any evidence of a constant variation in rates between that original tender and the tender of Habibur Rahman. The inference that the first five rates appearing in Exhibit P-3A were the rates originally quoted was based merely on conjecture, because the original tender itself had not been produced and its contents were unknown. Moreover, the deposition of Doongaji revealed that when tenders for the Seoni distillery contract were called in 1942, the rates quoted by Ratanshah were lower than Doongaji’s rates for every item. Ratanshah 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 admitted that his rates were not only lower than Doongaji’s but also lower throughout the tender compared with those of Laxminarain, Haji Ismail and Habibur Rahman, even though he had not seen their tenders. This testimony demonstrated that a contractor could, on his own calculation and without reference to other competitors’ tenders, quote rock-bottom rates for all items in order to secure a contract. The Court therefore did not accept the suggestion that Patel could not have done in 1946 what Ratanshah had done in 1942, namely quote rates lower than Doongaji’s for every item. If a person is determined to submit the lowest possible rates and his own calculations produce figures that are below those of other tenderers, it is entirely conceivable that he would quote lower rates for every item. Finally, it was alleged that Patel had adopted a specific plan when submitting the three tenders in the names of himself, Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman, intending that his own rates should be three pies lower than the rates he had quoted for Habibur Rahman, and that in the first five items of Exhibit 145 he adhered to that plan. The discussion of how Patel subsequently departed from that plan continues in the following portion of the judgment.
In this case the Court observed that Patel kept to his original scheme for the first five items of Exhibit 145, leaving the rates he had initially quoted unchanged because those rates were already lower than the rates offered by Doongaji. Beginning with the sixth item, however, Patel replaced the rates he had originally submitted with new figures, thereby abandoning his earlier scheme and ensuring that each of the subsequent rates was only three pies lower than the rates quoted by Habibur Rahman. The Court noted that while it is indisputable that Patel did not follow his original plan for the items after the fifth, this departure does not permit any inference that the first five items constitute a part of his original tender or that the change was made because Patel had examined Exhibit P-6 and wished to underbid Doongaji. The Court reiterated that the purpose of presenting three apparently separate tenders, purportedly by parties acting together, was to secure the contract under one name or another, and that Patel, as the author of all three documents, could have intentionally quoted substantially lower figures in his own tender than those quoted by Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman in order to create the appearance that the tenders were not prepared by a single individual. The Court further stated that a detailed comparison of the Doongaji and Patel tenders completely undermines the theory advanced by the lower courts. The rates recorded for the first five items of Exhibit P-145 are lower than Doongaji's rates by 102, 69, 18, 12 and 9 pies respectively. Even for the later items, except in one instance where the difference between Doongaji and Patel is only two pies, the disparities range from nine to eleven pies. The Court described Patel as a businessman whose primary aim in quoting rates was to maximise profit; therefore, if Patel had consulted Doongaji’s tender he would have set his rates to achieve the greatest possible margin. The Court found that the learned Advocate-General could not explain why Patel would maintain a quotation of Rs 2-10-6 for a quantity of 50,000 gallons when Doongaji’s rate was Rs 3-3-0, noting that Patel could easily have raised his quotation to Rs 3 and, in all other instances, could have underbid Doongaji by only two, three or six pies at most. Accordingly, the Court concluded that there was no logical basis for drawing any inference from the differences between Doongaji’s rates and Patel’s rates, nor from any presumed uniformity among the rates of Habibur Rahman or R.S. Patel, that would demonstrate that Exhibit P-3A had been prepared after consulting Exhibit P-6.
It was observed that certain rates shown in Exhibit P-3A were lower than the corresponding rates in Exhibit P-6 by only one or two pies. While it was acknowledged that a few rates were indeed lower by two pies, the Court held that this fact did not lead to any conclusion unless a presumption of guilt was adopted. The Court noted that if one began with the assumption that the Doongaji tender had been shown to Patel, then these minor differences could be fitted into a view that Patel might have copied parts of Exhibit P-6. However, the Court criticised the lower tribunals for committing the error of abandoning the fundamental principle in criminal law that an accused is presumed innocent and that the prosecution must prove guilt beyond doubt. The Court further addressed the allegation concerning the covering letter identified as Exhibit P-3, which Patel had attached to his tender. In that letter Patel referred to three appendices numbered 1, 2 and 3. The same wording appeared in the covering letters of Exhibit P-4 (Habibur Rahman) and Exhibit P-5 (Zakirur Rahman), where the three appendices of their tenders corresponded to the references made. In contrast, Patel’s tender did not merely list appendix 1; instead, it split the first appendix into 1(a) and 1(b), thereby increasing the total to four appendices. The lower courts suggested that this deviation arose because Patel had examined Exhibit P-6 and copied its format, and they argued that Patel’s original tender should have contained only three appendices like those of Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman, with the presence of 1(a) and 1(b) indicating a substitution of the tender. The Court found that the magistrate had placed undue weight on this point and had misled himself. Firstly, it was not correct to state 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 labeled its appendices as A, B and C, showing no uniform labeling scheme. Secondly, there was no conflict between the way Habibur Rahman and Patel described their appendices; both used the numbers 1, 2 and 3, and the subdivision of the first appendix into (a) and (b) did not constitute a departure from the method of description. Moreover, Patel’s covering letter explicitly mentioned four appendices, whereas the covering letters of Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman each referred only to three. The trial magistrate and the Sessions Judge had ignored these distinctions in the description of the appendices and had assumed a uniform description, an assumption the Court rejected. Consequently, the Court concluded that the purported peculiarities were not reliable indicators of copying or fraud.
In the matter before the Court, it was held that the objections raised by the lower tribunals concerning Exhibit P-3A must be dismissed. The Court concluded that no factual circumstance existed that could render Exhibit P-3A inauthentic, and that the document could have been prepared without reference to Exhibit P-6. Consequently, the foundation upon which the judgments of the trial court and the Sessions Judge were based was found to have disappeared. The Court observed that there was no evidence indicating any improper motive behind the preparation of the document, and that, when viewed from a just and legal standpoint, the facts did not justify a conviction. Although the procedural aspects of the proceedings were deemed unobjectionable, the Court determined that a grave miscarriage of justice had occurred. Accordingly, the convictions of both appellants on the second charge were set aside and the appellants were acquitted of that charge.
To assess the third charge, the Court set out the contents of Exhibit P-24, which had been alleged to have been antedated to create evidence favorable to the defence and detrimental to Mr Amarnath. The letter, addressed to the Commissioner of Excise, C. P. & Berar, Nagpur, began with the handwritten notation “Congress Nagar, Nagpur, 20th November, 1946” and continued in typed form. The body of the letter read: “Dear Sir, I beg to submit 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. Same may 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 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 table with the same filed 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 not 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 Court noted that the date line was handwritten, while the remainder of the correspondence was typed. It further observed that the numeral “6” in the year 1946 had been overwritten on a previously written “7” in continental style, and that the alteration was apparent to the naked eye. The learned Advocate-General, and the findings of the lower courts, had contended that the letter was actually written during the investigation in July or August 1947 and was antedated to implicate Mr Amarnath. The Court found that no evidence on the record supported the allegation of antedating, and that the intrinsic characteristics of the letter indicated that it most likely originated on the date it bore.
It was alleged that the letter in question had been written during the investigation of the case, sometime in July or August 1947, and subsequently antedated so as to implicate Amarnath and to be used as evidence in the defence. The issue that required determination was whether any evidence existed to establish that the letter had indeed been prepared at a later date than the one it bore. The Court examined the record and found no documentary or testimonial proof supporting the claim of back-dating. Conversely, the intrinsic characteristics of the letter, including its wording and context, indicated that it most probably originated on the date printed on it. The factual background relevant to the dispute was that the tenders had been opened by the accused Nargundkar on 11 November 1946, after which he passed them to Amarnath with the necessary endorsements, and Amarnath was required to prepare a report on those tenders. According to the contents of the letter, during the week commencing 11 November 1946 – described in the letter as “last week” – the accused Patel visited Amarnath and observed Edulji Doongaji present with his tender open on the table, an occurrence that reportedly astonished Patel. Approximately a week later Patel alleged that he again went to Seoni, where he found Amarnath accompanied by Mr Mehta, the former manager of Edulji Doongaji, and the tender file was again lying open. The letter further stated that Patel had urged Amarnath to act fairly in the matter, requested the Commissioner to ensure that his own tender was not tampered with, and sought justice. The overarching purpose of the letter, as expressed, was to shield Patel from any covert manipulation in the award of the contract.
In the statement made by Patel under section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code, he recounted that he saw Amarnath on the morning of 15 or 16 November 1946, met him again at the Seoni distillery premises on 16 November 1946, and later that same day encountered him at about 9 p.m. at the Seoni dak bungalow. He further claimed another meeting on 17 November 1946 at 10 a.m. and added that he had visited Amarnath’s residence in Nagpur on several occasions between 12 and 18 November. The learned Advocate-General contended that Patel’s testimony conflicted with the description contained in Exhibit P-24. The Court, however, found no inconsistency between Patel’s statement and the recitals in the exhibit. If Patel had indeed seen Amarnath on 12 November, and the letter was dated 20 November, the reference to seeing him “last week” would be accurate, and the later comment about seeing him again about a week later would correspond with visits on 16 or 17 November. Such a timeline represents roughly a one-week interval between the two encounters. The Court concluded that drawing a negative inference against the accused on the basis of a minor imprecision in date description, and thereby asserting that Patel had met Amarnath on 9 November 1946, would constitute an unnecessary and unjust stretching of the evidence.
The Court observed that the statements attributed to the accused are either true or false but remain consistent with the letter dated 20 November 1946. The magistrate had pointed out that the uncertainty regarding the exact date and the reference to “the week” suggested that the allegations were inaccurate. The Court could not see how such vagueness could substantiate the magistrate’s conclusion. Particular emphasis was placed on the fact that the numeral 6 had been overwritten on the numeral 7 in the handwritten portion of the letter. It was argued that people habitually write the correct year after several months have passed since the turn of the year, and therefore the correct year would have been entered initially in Exhibit P-24, with the later change to 6 indicating that the letter might actually have been written in 1947. The Court found this reasoning to be speculative. It noted that the alteration could have been an inadvertent mistake corrected immediately, and that such errors are not uncommon in official documents. This point was supported by paragraph 93 of the Sessions Judge’s judgment, which quoted a case where a file (Exhibit ID-35) contained a sheet with two office notes showing inconsistent dates: one signed “6-4-1948” by A.M. Naidu and another signed “6-4-1947” by the appellant Nargundkar, whereas other notes established that the correct date of both signatures should have been 6 August 1947. The cited judgment observed that while such mistakes are possible, any inference must be drawn only if there is additional supporting evidence. The Court subsequently noted that it could find no other evidence to demonstrate that the letter was not written on the date it bears. Even the testimony of Gadgil could not explain his claim that the letter was written in July 1946, leading the Court to conclude that his statement was untrue. The endorsement on the letter by the accused Nargundkar clearly showed the date 21 November 1946. The Court held that, if the letter had been delivered to him months after that endorsement, he would ordinarily have recorded the receipt either on the letter itself or in his office’s receipt register. Finally, it was mentioned that the letter was not kept in the file of the tenders that were stored separately, a circumstance that the Court noted did not, by itself, permit any adverse inference about the letter’s datedness.
In the matter of the tender documents that were kept separate, the Commissioner observed that a particular letter should be filed and he consequently sent it to the office for filing. The Court noted that even if the office staff failed to place the letter in the appropriate file, such an omission did not permit any adverse inference to be drawn regarding the date that the letter displayed. The Court further observed that a forger would not have acted in such a clumsy manner as to change the year from 1947 to 1946 while leaving the original numeral “7” untouched, an alteration that would plainly reveal the suspicious character of the document. Moreover, there was no urgency that compelled the creation of a forged document, and a second letter without any such alteration could have been typed readily. Consequently, the Court found no basis to conclude that the letter had been fabricated or that its date was fraudulent.
The subsequent argument centered on the typewriter used to produce the letter. It was contended that the letter was not typed on the office typewriter then designated as article B, but rather on a different typewriter, article A, which according to the parties had not arrived in Nagpur until the end of 1946. Evidence from certain experts was introduced on this point. The High Court had correctly held that the opinions of those experts were inadmissible under the Indian Evidence Act because they did not fall within the scope of section 45. That ruling of the High Court was not challenged before this Court. It was noted with some surprise that, although the High Court declared the expert testimony inadmissible, the learned judge nevertheless discussed it and placed a measure of reliance upon it. Both the trial magistrate and the learned Sessions Judge had used the inadmissible expert evidence to reach the conclusion that, because the letter was typed on article A – a typewriter that had only reached Nagpur at the end of December 1946 – the letter must have been antedated. The Court held that any conclusion based on such inadmissible evidence must be disregarded. Further, the trial court had claimed that the expert testimony was corroborated by statements made by the accused under section 342. The accused, Patel, when questioned about the letter, stated that Exhibit P-31 had been typed on the office typewriter article B, while Exhibit P-24, his personal complaint letter, had been typed by his personal assistant on one of the trial typewriters brought into the office for evaluation with a view to purchase. He explained that, as the complaint was personal, no copy was retained in the correspondence files, just as no copy of his tender Exhibit P-3A was kept. He added that during September, October and November 1946 several machines were brought in for trial from various parties until the typewriter article A was finally purchased by National Industrial Alcohol Ltd. Company. The Court observed that if the expert evidence is excluded, there remains no material to establish that Exhibit P-24 was typed on article A. The trial magistrate and the Sessions Judge had relied on a portion of the accused’s statement to infer that, because the letter was not typed on article B, it must necessarily have been typed on article A. The Court found such selective use of the accused’s statement to be improper.
The Court held that relying on the accused’s statement was entirely improper. It reiterated the settled principle that an admission made by a person, whether it amounts to a confession or not, cannot be dissected and only a portion of it may be used against the maker. In other words, an admission must be considered in its entirety or it must be disregarded altogether. The Court explained that if the whole statement of the accused were admitted, it would completely destroy the prosecution’s case. Conversely, if the statement were ignored in full, the record would contain no material from which any inference could be drawn that the letter in question had not been written on the date it bears. On the basis of this reasoning, the Court concluded that the evidence on record did not establish that Exhibit P-24 had been antedated. Consequently, the charge of forgery relating to that letter could not stand. Reading the letter as a whole, the Court found no indication that it was drafted with the intention of causing injury to Amarnath or of creating a defence against the second charge. Instead, the document was characterized as innocuous, its principal purpose being to protect the interests of the accused, Patel, and to guard him against any dishonest or unfair conduct by rival contractors. The Court observed that there was no inference of intent to defraud or to cause harm to Amarnath, even though Patel, in attempting to safeguard himself, made certain allegations against Amarnath. Accordingly, the Court set aside the conviction of both appellants on the third charge and ordered their acquittal. As a result, the consolidated appeal was allowed, the judgments of the three lower courts were set aside, and the appellants were fully acquitted.