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5. The learned Assistant Sessions Judge came to the conclusion that the petitioner, in fact, had filed the document in the 144 Cr.P.C. case in the court of the learned Sub-divisional Officer and that although there was no forgery of the signature of any party, but in any case there was antedating of the document as Man-gal Singh and Kariman Singh purported to have executed the document on 4-5-1950, and, in fact, this could never have been possible before 17-8-1950, when the cartridge paper was issued as was deposed to by P.W. 9.

The learned Assistant Sessions Judge proceeded on the footing that even if it was assumed that Mangal Singh was in possession, he would still be held guilty of the charges brought against him, because the gravamen of the offence was the fabrication of false evidence which could be done by the party even to bolster up a true case.

If, therefore, Ext. 9 was found to be an antedated document brought into existence to support the case of the petitioner, it is wholly immaterial that he was in actual possession as alleged by Ramraj Gareri and can be guilty of the offence of forgery in spite of the fact that he was in actual possession.

11. Learned Counsel for the petitioner also contended that the conviction under Section 487, Penal Code, is also not sustainable. He concedes, that he cannot challenge the position that the document was antedated and, in fact, that was the case of the petitioner in so far as he stated that the antedating was done, because the document was drawn up in 1951 and the antedating became necessary to evidence the fact of actual exchange which took place in May, 1950.

If, therefore, it can be established that the antedating is fraudulent or dishonest, then the petitioner must be held guilty of having forged this document and he is punishable under Section 467, Penal Code. Section 464, while defining "making a false document" also lays down the condition that the making signing etc. must be dishonestly or fraudulently done.

If the parties to the instrument are agreed, it is not for the court to say that the antedating was necessarily fraudulent unless this is prejudicial to the interest of a person other than the parties to the document. Learned Additional Standing Counsel contended that in the present case, the document was brought into existence to use as evidence to harm the interest of 'bataidars' Ramraj Gareri and his cousin and it must, accordingly, be held that this amounted to a false document even under Section 464 of the Penal Code. Learned Counsel for the petitioner placed reliance on the case of 'Emperor v. Govind Singh', AIR 1926 Pat 535 (A) where a Division Bench of this Court consisting of Ross and Kulwant Sahay JJ. held that mere antedating of the document would not necessarily make it a false document unless it operates or could operate to prejudice anyone. That was a case in which the accused Govind Singh was charged with using a forged document in a civil litigation.