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(d) Even this agreement seems to have fallen through and then we come to the disputed document Exhibit B, dated 11th December 1912, in which the accused's mother's name which appears in Exhibit III is left out and the Rs. 12,000 mentioned in Exhibit III is increased to Rs. 12,250 by the addition of Rs. 250 for interest between the date3 of Exhibits III and B.

(e) This document, Exhibit B, begins by calling itself an agreement between the accused's father-in law, Vengappa Aiyar, on the one hand, and four persons, namely, accused's father, accused and accused's two brothers, on the other hand. It is wholly in accused's handwriting. Prosecution 1st witness himself says: "the document is not complete unless accused's father and brothers sign" (the signatures of accused's father-in-law and accused alone now appear in the document). Prosecution 3rd witness says: "It was arranged that every one of the five parties should sign the agreement, Exhibit B, before it was complete." Thus the prosecution witnesses themselves admit that the document was to have no legal effect till the five signed. The accused was entrusted with the duty of persuading his father and two brothers to sign and until their signatures were put in, it was to have no legal effect (see also Exhibit IV, wherein paragraph No. 11 Exhibit B is admitted by everybody interested to be an incomplete document, void and of no effect).

7. I shall now deal with the third contention. It is clear that no legal right or liability can at all be based upon Exhibit B, (a) either in its unaltered state before the additions in dispute were made; or (o) in its altered state after the additions in dispute. In R. v. Turpin 2 Car & K. 820 Baron Platt says: "I think that this prosecution must fail. Until the signatures of a majority of the Parish Officers were attached to this cheque, it was an incomplete instrument and the altering it" (as regards the amount) when incomplete, is, therefore, no forgery. The prisoner must be "acquitted." The oases in Siwsami Chetti v. Sevugan Chetti 25 M. 889 : 12 M.L.J. 17, Amirtham Pillai v. Nanjah Gounden 23 Ind. Cas. 464 : 26 M.H.J. 257 : 15 M.L.T. 205 : (1914) M.W.N. 250 : 1 L.W. 243, and hethiri Menon v. Gopalan Nair 80 Ind. Cas. 713 : 2 L.W. 714. 29 M.L.J. 291, (1915) M.W.N. 586, 18 M.L.T. 220, 39 M. 597, and the evidence on the side of the prosecution itself which I have already set out show that neither in its altered state nor in its unaltered state could any legal right or liability be created or be purported to be created under this document, because it is not signed by three of the five intended executants, nor does it purport to be signed by them. And as Halsbury, Volume 9, paragraph 1417, puts it, "if an instrument, had it been genuine, would have been effectual in the ordinary course of business between the parties...no defect being...on the face of it, such instrument may-be the subject-matter of a forgery, although the instrument itself, if genuine, would have been void in law for want of compliance with some statutory direction....An instrument which after making or alteration still remains incomplete cannot be an order. An ineffectual addition to a document which already constitutes a complete order is not forgery, but where the document is so far incomplete that a signature is required as a conditions of payment the false making of such signature is forgery." An incomplete document cannot be a valuable security or a document which is or purports to be a document by which any legal right is created or affected. See illustration to Section 30 of the Indian Penal Code. A document incomplete on its face neither is, nor purports to be, a document creating or affecting rights. If the accused had obtained or forged the additional signatures required to convert the document into a complete agreement on its face, he might be convicted of forgery if my view on the second point is erroneous. Even if he intended to obtain the signatures of his father and brothers to the altered document without obtaining prosecution 2nd witness's authorization or ratification of the alterations, the mater would not have passed beyond the stage of preparation for committing an offence.

10. It is next contended that the alteration of the document does not amount to making a false document within the meaning of Section 464: (1) because it was not made dishonestly or fraudulently, and (2) because the document Exhibit B being incomplete for want of the signatures of accused's father and brothers, it cannot be said to be a false document. In support of the 2nd proposition we have been referred to R. v. Turpin 2 Car & K. 820, but I can see no advantage to be gained from consulting this old English case (which is very briefly reported) when we have to interpret an Indian Statute of a much later date. Similarly the many Civil cases cited to show that Exhibit B is not a valid document, are quite useless in determining whether it is forged. The contention, that the word "make" in Section 464 is used in the first sentence in its ordinary sense, but must subsequently be read in the technical meaning denoted in ' making "a promissory note, must, be rejected. It has nothing to support it and even in the expression maker of a promissory note "there is no technical meaning; for the technical term for the maker is the "drawer."