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Showing contexts for: Forgery of document in Shivaji Narayan Shinde vs The State Of Maharashtra on 10 April, 1970Matching Fragments
11. Section 468 of the Indian Penal Code provides as follows :
Forgery for purpose of cheating.-Whoever commits forgery, intending that the document forged shall be used for the purpose of cheating, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine.
The offence under Section 468 is an aggravated form of the offence of forgery. Under Whoever makes any false document or part if 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.
We have not reproduced the third clause of Section 464 as it is not material to the present appeal. The offence of forgery simpliciter is punishable under Section 465. The group of sections beginning with Section 465 and ending with Section 469 provide for aggravated forms of forgery. Section 466 deals with forgery of a record of Court or of a public register, etc., Section 468 with forgery for the purpose of cheating, and s. 469 with forgery for the purpose of harming reputation; the punishment prescribed for each of these aggravated offences being higher than for the offence of forgery under Section 465. The ingredient of the offence under Section 468 is the committing of forgery with a particular intent, that intent being that the document forged should be used for the purpose of cheating. The section does not require that the accused should actually commit the offence of cheating. Forgery is usually an act done in the furtherance of some other criminal design. What is material is the intention or purpose of the offender in committing forgery. If his intention or purpose in committing forgery is that the forged document should be used for the purpose of cheating, the offender is guilty of the aggravated offence under Section 468. If a forged document was in fact used by the offender for the purpose of cheating, he would be guilty both of the offence aider Section 468 as also the offence of cheating and he would be liable to be punished for both these offences.
13. Turning now to the submissions on the second count, Section 471 of the Indian Penal Code provides as follows :
Using as genuine « forged document.-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.
A "forged document" is defined by Section 470. Under that section " a false document made wholly or in part by forgery" is designated "a forged document". The forged document in the present case is the altered pass book. "Dishonestly" and "fraudulently" are defined by Sections 24 and 25 respectively. These sections provide as follows :
15. This question has been considered in a number of decisions of other High Courts though it does not appear to have come before this High Court. In Emperor v. Mohit Kumar Mukerjee (1925) I.L.R. 52 Cal. 881, after discussing the earlier authorities, Page, J., sitting singly on the Original Criminal Side of the Calcutta High Court, held that when a person fraudulently or dishonestly presents a document to another person as being what it purports to be, or causes the same to be so presented, knowing or having reason to believe that it is forged, the document is used as genuine within the meaning of Section 471 of the Indian Penal Code. Whether there has been a user or not must depend upon the circumstances of the case. Neither the acquisition nor the deprivation is an essential ingredient of the intent in an offence under Section 471. In Supdt. & Rembr., Bengal v. Daulatram , a Division Bench of the same High Court pointed out that to constitute an offence under Section 471, the nature of the user is not material. In Ali Ahmad v. Emperor [1982] A.I.R. Cal. 545, the facts were that certain false documents were filed in Court along with the plaint. It was contended in the written statement that these documents were a forgery. The suit was dismissed. The accused was thereafter prosecuted and convicted, inter alia, under Section 471. The same Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court held that if a person puts forward a document as supporting his claim in any matter, whether that document is acted upon by the Court or used in evidence or not is immaterial for the purpose of constituting user of the document by that party within the meaning of Section 471. The same view was taken by a Division Bench of the Patna High Court in Idu Jolatia v. Emperor [1918] A.I.R. Pat. 274. In Hampana Gowd v. Emperor , a suit was filed against the accused on a pronote. The accused set up the defence of part payment and produced certain receipts* in Court in respect of such alleged payments. After filing these documents along with his written statement in Court, the accused did not defend the suit any further and the suit was decreed ex parte, and it was found that these receipts were forged. The accused was prosecuted and convicted under Section 471. It was argued in an appeal by the accused against his conviction that what the accused had done did not amount to using the forged receipts as genuine. This argument was characterised by King, J., as, being "quite unsustainable". He said (p. 282):