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13. Of course it is true that there is no explicit stipulation in the said section that the forgery relating to a document filed in a proceedings before a court of law or given in evidence in a court should have been committed after the said document was filed or given in evidence in the said court. Section 195(1)(b)(ii) Cr.P.C. simply states that, if any such offence described in Section 463 or punishable under section 471, section 475 or section 476, of the said Code, when such offence is alleged to have been committed in respect of a document produced or given in evidence in a proceeding in any court, no court shall take cognizance of such offence otherwise than on a written complaint given by the court concerned or on his behalf. The said section has been interpreted by the learned single judge of this court, of course relying on two earlier judgments of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Surjit Singh v. Balbir Singh reported in 1996 SCC (Cri) 521 and in Gopalakrishna Menon v. D.Raja Reddy reported in AIR 1983 SC 1052, to mean that any offence of forgery allegedly committed in respect a document produced or given in an evidence in a proceeding before a court in respect of which such forgery is alleged to have been committed either prior to such production in the court or subsequent to its production, the bar under section 195(1)(b)(ii) will be attracted.

"An enlarged interpretation to Section 195(1)(b)(ii), whereby the bar created by the said provision would also operate where after commission of an act of forgery the document is subsequently produced in court, is capable of great misuse. As pointed out in Sachida Nand Singh and another vs. State of Bihar and another reported in (1998) 2 SCC 493, after preparing a forged document or committing an act of forgery, a person may manage to get a proceeding instituted in any civil, criminal or revenue court, either by himself or through someone set up by him and simply file the document in the said proceeding. He would thus be protected from prosecution, either at the instance of a private party or the police until the court, where the document has been filed, itself chooses to file a complaint. The litigation may be a prolonged one due to which the actual trial of such a person may be delayed indefinitely. Such an interpretation would be highly detrimental to the interest of the society at large."

18. The said judgments squarely apply to the case on hand. In view of the said observation of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the latest cases, this court accepts the contention raised on behalf of the respondents that only when forgery and tampering with the documents are alleged to have been committed in respect of a document produced in a court after the same was produced in the court or given in evidence in the proceedings, the bar under section 195(1)(b)(ii) will be attracted and that the said bar is not attracted to the cases of forgery or tampering with the documents allegedly committed prior to the production of the said documents in the court.

19. It is the clear case of the second respondent/de-facto complainant that the power of attorney was forged in her name before the production of the same in the civil suit and that hence the bar provided under section 195(1)(b)(ii) is not attracted to the case on hand.

20. So far as the other two contentions of the petitioner are concerned, this court is of the considered view that they are also liable to be rejected, as there is no substance in them. The contention of the petitioner that the second respondent having chosen to file a civil suit in which the question of genuineness of the document is raised, should not have chosen to prefer the complaint alleging forgery of the document without waiting for the result of the civil case, does not have any substance in it. It is unnecessary to cite all the precedents, which go to show that when an act giving rise to a cause of action for criminal prosecution as well as a civil remedy, the criminal prosecution launched cannot be quashed simply because a civil remedy is available or that proceedings for such civil remedy has been initiated. Suffice it to cite a judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Vitoori Pradeep Kumar vs. Kaisula Dharmaiah and others reported in (2002) 9 SCC 581. It is traite law that the availability of the civil remedy and the fact that proceedings in a civil court has been initiated for such civil remedy is not a bar for seeking criminal prosecution of the offender.