Budhu Ram vs State of Rajasthan

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

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 229 of 1960

Decision Date: 24 July 1962

Coram: Wanchoo

In the matter titled Budhu Ram versus State of Rajasthan, the Supreme Court delivered its judgment on 24 July 1962. The case involved an application for compensation filed by a displaced person under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1954. The appellant, identified as Budhu Ram, submitted to the Assistant Settlement Officer an attested copy of his verified claim, which was later discovered to be a fabricated document. On the basis of this submission, the appellant was convicted by an Assistant Sessions Judge under sections 471 and 420 read with section 5 II of the Indian Penal Code. The Sessions Judge upheld the term of imprisonment but set aside the monetary fine. The High Court, exercising its revisionary powers, affirmed the decision of the Sessions Judge.

The appellant argued that the Assistant Settlement Officer should be regarded as a court within the meaning of section 195(1)(c) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, and therefore a complaint by that officer was a prerequisite for the prosecution to be valid. The appellant further contended that the production of an attested copy of the forged verified claim did not constitute an offence under section 471 of the Indian Penal Code. The Court examined the requirement of a complaint under section 195(1)(c) and held that even if the Settlement Officer qualified as a court, a complaint was unnecessary because the document produced before him was not the original forged document but merely a copy. The Court observed that the language of section 195(1)(c) indicated that a complaint was required only when the forged document itself was produced in court. In reaching this conclusion, the Court applied the principle from Sanmukhsingh v. The King, (1949) L. R. 77 I. A. 7.

The Court further explained that section 471 of the Indian Penal Code penalises the use of a forged document as genuine, and that the production of an attested copy of a forged document can amount to such use when the copy serves the same purpose as the original. It clarified that the distinction between section 471 of the Penal Code and section 195(1)(c) of the Code of Criminal Procedure lies in the latter’s requirement of the actual forged document’s production in court, a condition not satisfied in the present case. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the conviction under section 471 and rejected the appellant’s contention that the offence did not occur.

The case was heard in criminal appellate jurisdiction as Criminal Appeal No. 229 of 1960, filed by special leave from the judgment and order dated 19 August 1960 of the Rajasthan High Court in Criminal Revision No. 228 of 1959. Counsel for the appellant and counsel for the respondent were respectively instructed, and the judgment was pronounced on 24 July 1962.

The judgment was delivered by Justice Wanchoo. The case was an appeal by special leave from the judgment of the Rajasthan High Court. The appellant was a displaced person from West Pakistan who had obtained a registration card for displaced persons from the Rehabilitation Department in July 1949. In 1954 the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, No 44 of 1954, was enacted, and subsequently the Central Government issued a notification under that Act directing displaced persons with verified claims to file applications for compensation. In compliance with the Act and the rules made thereunder, the appellant filed an application for compensation, shown as Exhibit P‑2, with the Assistant Settlement Officer at Alwar in March 1955. In support of that application he also submitted an attested copy of his verified claim, shown as Exhibit P‑3.

The Assistant Settlement Officer proposed to allocate to the appellant one hundred and thirty‑two acres of evacuee agricultural land on a quasipermanent basis and instructed the Tehsildar of Nagar to prepare a proposal in that regard after consulting the appellant. While this process was under way, secret information reached the authorities indicating that displaced persons in that area had obtained land allotments on the basis of false and forged verified claims. An inquiry was therefore launched, and it was discovered that the appellant’s claim for compensation was based on a fabricated verified claim. As a result, the appellant was charged under sections 466, 471 and 420 read with section 511 of the Indian Penal Code and the matter was committed for trial to the Court of Sessions at Alwar.

It was noted that the original document of which Exhibit P‑3 was a copy had never been produced either before the Assistant Settlement Officer or before the Sessions Court. The case was tried by the Assistant Sessions Judge to whom it had been transferred. The appellant pleaded that the application in Exhibit P‑2 had not been filed by him and that he had no connection with that application or its accompanying enclosures. He further contended that the Assistant Settlement Officer was acting in a quasi‑judicial capacity and, because the offence under section 471 was alleged to have been committed in respect of a document produced or offered as evidence before that officer, the prosecution was incompetent in the absence of a formal complaint by the Assistant Settlement Officer.

The Assistant Sessions Judge rejected the appellant’s argument that a complaint by the Assistant Settlement Officer was a prerequisite for taking cognizance of an offence under section 471 of the Indian Penal Code. Relying on the evidence presented by the prosecution, the Judge held that the application in Exhibit P‑2, the copy of the verified claim in Exhibit P‑3, and the other papers that accompanied the application had been prepared by the appellant and had been attested and verified by him. Although there was no direct proof that the appellant himself had physically placed the application in the office of the Assistant Settlement Officer, the Judge concluded that, given the surrounding circumstances, the application and its enclosures could only have been submitted by the appellant or by a person acting on his behalf.

In this case the Court observed that the application identified as Exhibit P‑2 together with its annexures could have been placed in the office of the Assistant Settlement Officer, Alwar, only by the appellant himself or by a person acting on his behalf. Consequently the Court of Sessions convicted the appellant under section 471 of the Indian Penal Code and also under section 420 read with section 511 of the same Code, imposing both a term of imprisonment and a monetary fine. The appellant appealed this conviction to the Sessions Judge at Alwar. The Sessions Judge dismissed the appeal, but altered the order by setting aside the monetary fine while leaving the imprisonment sentences untouched. The imprisonment imposed consisted of two years of rigorous imprisonment for the offence under section 471 and one year of rigorous imprisonment for the offence under section 420 read with section 511; both terms were ordered to run concurrently by the Sessions Judge.

Subsequently the appellant sought revision before the High Court, principally contending that the prosecution was legally infirm because, under section 195(1)(c) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a complaint by the Assistant Settlement Officer was required before a trial could commence. The High Court rejected this argument and also examined the substantive findings of fact made by the lower courts. Finding no reason to disturb those findings, the High Court affirmed that the appellant had indeed submitted the application and its enclosures, and that the prosecution was competent. The High Court also rejected the appellant’s claim that no offence under section 471 could arise because Exhibit P‑3 was only a copy of a verified claim. After evaluating these contentions, the High Court confirmed the judgment of the Sessions Judge.

Following the High Court’s decision, the appellant applied for a certificate authorising an appeal to the Supreme Court, but the application was denied. The appellant then filed a special leave petition before this Court, which was granted, thereby bringing the matter before the present Court. Counsel for the appellant reiterated the arguments previously raised before the High Court. First, counsel argued that the Assistant Settlement Officer should be regarded as a court within the meaning of section 195(1)(e) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and therefore the prosecution was invalid in the absence of a formal complaint by that officer. Second, counsel contended that because Exhibit P‑3 was merely a copy, section 471 could not be invoked, even assuming that the appellant or his agent had filed the application with its enclosures before the Assistant Settlement Officer. Finally, counsel asserted that there was no evidence establishing that the appellant himself, or anyone on his behalf, had made the application identified as Exhibit P‑2. The Court noted that it was not necessary, for the purpose of deciding the present appeal, to determine whether the Assistant Settlement Officer, acting under Act 44 of 1954, could be deemed a court within the meaning of section 195(1)(c) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

In the present case the Court assumed, for the sake of argument, that the Assistant Settlement Officer qualified as a court within the meaning of section 195(1)(c) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The remaining issue was whether a formal complaint by that officer was indispensable, given that the officer had not been presented with the original forged document but only with a copy of it. The question of the necessity of a complaint in such circumstances had previously been examined by the Judicial Committee in the decision of Sanmukh Singh v. The King. That Committee held that the language of section 195(1)(c) refers exclusively to the document alleged to be forged and not to any copy of that document. Consequently, the absence of a written complaint from a court that had only received copies of forged documents does not constitute a bar to instituting proceedings for forgery or for the use of a forged document. The Judicial Committee explained that the provision can only concern the document that is alleged to be forged, not a duplicate of it. This interpretation accords with the plain grammatical meaning of the words and is reinforced by practical common‑sense considerations. As observed in the earlier judgment of Girdharilal v. The Emperor, a court before which a copy of a document is produced is not in a position to pass judgment on the authenticity of the original document. Although it was suggested that the production of a copy might be treated as introducing the forged document into evidence, the Lords observed that while a copy may provide secondary evidence of the contents of a document, the forged document itself is not thereby given in evidence. The Court respectfully adopted this view. Section 195(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure states: “No Court shall take cognizance—(a) … (c) of any offence described in section 463 or punishable under section 471, section 475 or section 476 of the same Code, when such offence is alleged to have been committed by a party to any proceeding in any Court in respect of a document produced or given in evidence in such proceeding, except on the complaint in writing of such Court, or of some other Court to which such Court is subordinate.” A straightforward grammatical construction of this provision shows that a complaint by the court is required when the offence consists of forging or using as genuine a document that is known or believed to be forged, and that the document is produced or given in evidence before the court. Hence, the provision mandates a complaint only when the forged document itself is produced before a court. Where, however, the material placed before the court is merely a copy and not the forged document itself, section 195(1)(c) does not become applicable on its terms. The reason for this limitation is the same grammatical and practical logic outlined above.

In the present matter the Court referred to a pronouncement by the Judicial Committee which observed that “the practical common sense of the matter, for the court before which a copy of a document is produced is not really in a position to express any opinion on the genuineness of the original.” On the basis of this observation the Court concluded that, even if the Assistant Settlement Officer were to be regarded as a court within the meaning of section 195(1)(c) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a formal complaint was not required. The reason was that the forged document itself had not been produced before the Assistant Settlement Officer; only a copy of that document had been presented. Consequently, the requirement of a complaint under section 195(1)(c) did not arise in these circumstances. The Court then turned to the question of whether an offence punishable under section 471 of the Indian Penal Code could be said to have been committed. To answer that issue the Court summarized the factual findings recorded by the Sessions Court concerning Exhibit P‑3. According to those findings, the appellant had handed the original of Exhibit P‑3 to a petition‑writer named Hotu Ram, who prepared a copy of it. That copy was subsequently shown to Mahesh Gaur, an Oaths Commissioner, who compared the copy with the original and then attested it. The attested copy was thereafter forwarded, as an enclosure, together with the appellant’s application for compensation (Exhibit P‑2) to the Assistant Settlement Officer. The Court noted that there was clear proof that the original of Exhibit P‑3 must have been forged, because no document of that description had ever been issued by the Office of the Chief Settlement Commissioner, Ministry of Rehabilitation, Delhi.

Section 471 of the Indian Penal Code states: “Whoever fraudulently or dishonestly uses as genuine any document which he knows or has reason to believe to be a forged document, shall be punished in the same manner as if he had forged such document.” The Court observed that the appellant had indeed employed the original of Exhibit P‑3, which was a forged document, when he obtained the attested copy from the Oaths Commissioner. By sending that attested copy along with his compensation application to the Assistant Settlement Officer, the appellant intended that the forged original should be treated as genuine through the production of its copy. The Court pointed out that under the Rules framed under Act No. 44 of 1954 it was not mandatory to forward the original verified claim; an attested copy sufficed, and that is exactly what the appellant did. By submitting the attested copy of the forged original, the appellant was effectively using the forged document, because the copy served as secondary evidence of the contents of a document that he knew or had reason to believe was forged. The Court emphasized that section 471 requires only the use of a document as genuine when the user knows or believes it to be forged; it does not stipulate that the original itself must be produced. Hence, the use of an attested copy of a forged document satisfies the statutory requirement of “use as genuine” under section 471.

In this case, the Court observed that the procedural rules permit the submission of an attested copy of a document in place of the original. The Court held that when a person submits such a copy while knowing, or having reason to believe, that the document is forged, the submission is equivalent to the use of the original forged document as genuine. The Court contrasted the requirements of section 471 of the Indian Penal Code with those of section 195(1){c) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Section 195(1){c) obliges a party to produce the forged document itself in court before a complaint can be entertained for forging or using the document as genuine. By contrast, section 471 does not impose any requirement that the original forged document be produced. Consequently, the Court reasoned that if an attested copy of a forged document is produced and that copy serves the same purpose as the original, the person has, in effect, used the forged document as genuine through the attested copy. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the attested copy of the forged document presented before the Assistant Settlement Officer constituted a use of the original forged document within the meaning of section 471.

The Court further examined the submissions that the appellant neither knew the document was forged nor was responsible for preparing the alleged enclosure Ex. P‑3 that accompanied the application Ex. P‑2. The appellant had contended that he had not arranged for the preparation or attestation of either Ex. P‑2 or Ex. P‑3. The Court rejected this claim as untenable and found it to be false. In the absence of any indication that another person submitted Ex. P‑3, the Court held that it was proper to infer that the appellant, having arranged for the preparation of Ex. P‑2 and its enclosures, also caused Ex. P‑3 and its annexures to be presented or sent to the Assistant Settlement Officer. The Court also rejected the argument that the appellant could be ignorant of the forgery in Ex. P‑3, noting that Ex. P‑3 was a verified claim in the appellant’s own favour and that only the appellant could have known whether his claim had indeed been verified. The evidence from the Ministry of Rehabilitation showed that the appellant’s claim had never been verified. On this basis, the Court inferred that the appellant was aware that the original of Ex. P‑3 was a forged document and therefore used it as genuine.

The Court observed that the appellant treated the forged document as if it were genuine. It held that such treatment was dishonest because the appellant’s intention was to obtain an allotment to which he had no legal right, thereby securing an improper advantage for himself. The Court further noted that the matter had progressed well beyond the mere preparation of a false copy; the forged document was in fact submitted to the Assistant Settlement Officer, either by sending it or presenting it in person. Having examined the evidence, the Court concluded that the conviction of the appellant was justified and that the trial court’s judgment should be affirmed. Consequently, the Court found that the appeal raised no substantive issue that could overturn the conviction and therefore dismissed the appeal in its entirety. The Court also recorded that the appellant remains on bail and that appropriate measures will now be taken to implement the sentence that has been imposed on him. In sum, the appeal was dismissed and the conviction upheld.