Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

10. Before considering the evidence on the record it may be borne in mind that the court should evaluate the evidence of an approver de hors the corroborating pieces of evidence for if his testimony is itself uninspiring and unacceptable justifying its rejection outright, then, it would be futile and wholly unnecessary to look for corroborating evidence. It is only when the approver's evidence is considered otherwise acceptable that the court applies its mind to the rule that his testimony needs corroboration in material particulars connecting or tending to connect each one of the accused with the crime charged. The offences for which the appellant has been convicted, it may be recalled, are of conspiracy with the approver (P.W. 1) as contemplated by Section 120-B, I.P.C., and forgery of valuable security as contemplated by Section 467, I.P.C. Before us the counsel for the State clearly confined his contention to the forgery of valuable security as the real gravamen of the charge against the appellant, of course, in addition to the charge of conspiracy. We have, therefore, to consider the evidence bearing in mind the ingredients of these two offences.

13. Bhanwar Lal, the approver, appearing as P.W. 1 has deposed that in June, 1958 he wanted to buy a plot of land for building his own house at Kota where he had been transferred from Udaipur as Train Clerk, Kota Junction. He was introduced to the appellant through one Kanhaiyalal. He gave to the appellant an application for that purpose and also paid Rs. 40/- towards the price of the land and the appellant gave him a patta for a piece of land measuring 30'*45' without showing him its exact location. Inspite of repeated requests the appellant did not show him the plot on certain pretexts for about four or five months. And then he showed him a plot measuring only 30'*35'. On objection being raised the appellant promised to give to P.W. 1 some more land elsewhere. It appears that the approver and the appellant had by then become quite intimate. The approver gave to the appellant a contract for filling up the foundation for a house and also paid him about Rs. 8 or 9 hundred for which he took no receipt. The approver also started teaching the appellant's children as a private tutor without charging anything. It was due to this intimacy that the appellant is said to have asked the approver to help him in completing the proceedings of some incomplete patta cases of the Gram Panchayat. Bhanwar Lal, approver, who ultimately agreed to do this work went to the appellant's house where he found one Mehta, Secretary of the Mandi Committee, Madan Mohan Vijay and Badri Prasad. The appellant introduced the approver to Mehta and Madan Mohan and asked them to complete the Panchayat records according to his directions. According to the approver he had prepared about 200 pattas and order sheets in about eight or ten days' time. It is unnecessary to go into the remaining evidence of the approver at this stage. Suffice it to say that from his evidence it is not at all clear as to what interest the approver had in helping the appellant in what is described as the forgery of the various documents. His evidence, therefore, seems, prima facie, to be unimpressive and hardly trustworthy. The charge under Section 467, as already observed, is confined to four pattas issued in favour of Suraj Singh, Mool Singh and Mukat Behari. Two pattas issued in favour of Suraj Singh are Exs. P5 and P6 and one patta each in favour of Mool Singh and Mukat Behari are Exs. P 9 and P respectively. Before taking up these instances and scrutinising this evidence we may point out that there is no evidence worth the name and no argument was urged before us to attempt to show that in the case of the patta in question either the consideration received was less than the market value or the amount realised had been misappropriated and not duly deposited and credited in the appropriate account. There is thus no question of unlawful gain or loss by cheating anybody. Now Section 467 provides for punishment for forging a document which purports to be a valuable security or a will etc. We are concerned with the offence of forging a valuable security. Forgery is defined in Section 463, I.P.C. according to which whoever makes a false document or part of a document with intent to cause damage or injury to the public or to any person or to support any claim or title or to cause any person to part with property or to enter into any express or implied contract or with intent to commit fraud or that fraud may be committed, commits forgery. Section 30, I.P.C., defines "valuable security" to be a document which purports to be a document whereby any legal right is created, extended, transferred, restricted, extinguished or released or whereby any person acknowledges that he lies under legal liability or has not a certain legal right. We are, therefore, concerned only with forgery of valuable security. The fact that the pattas were granted in favour of the three persons mentioned above irregularly or contrary to any rules or directions applicable to such pattas would be wholly immaterial except to the extent it supports the case of forgery against the appellant.