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(2) The facts are as follows: Survey No.205 situated in the village Chekhad, Navsari Taluka, belongs to a temple known as the Radha- Krishna Pancha Pipla Temple situated in the village Dhaman. That temple has been declared to be a public trust under the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950. One Thakordas was the mahant of the temple. One Dayaramdas managed the temple and its properties as the constituted attorney of mahant Thakordas. Thakoredas made a gift of survey Nos. 205 to Bal Padmavati, respondent no. 2. The prosecution alleges that this gift was made to circumvent the trust proceedings. Padmavati agreed to sell this survey Nos. 205 to Lallubhai Laxmidas, respondent No. 3. She signed a document written on a stamp paper alleged to have been issued on 15th January 1954 and bearing the same date. That document is Exhibit 83 in the proceedings. This document is a contract of sale by which respondent No. 2 agreed to sell survey No. 205 to respondent No. 3. This document was produced before the Agricultural Lands Tribunal, Navsari, in a proceedings under Section 32G of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948. That proceedings terminated sometime thereafter. On 20th of June 1961, one Dahyabhai Haribhai of Dhaman village filed a first information before the P.S.I., Naavsari, in which he alleged that the document Exhibit 83 was a forgery. The allegation was that the stamp paper on which the contract of sale was written was not issued on 15-1-1954 as it purported to have been done, but that the stamp paper was issued sometime between 10th of March and25th of September 1959; that a false endorsement was got made on the stamp paper that it was issued on 15th January; that a false entry was made in the stamp register that the stamp was issued on 15thof January, although in fact, no such stamp paper was issued on that day; that the contract for sale was also written sometime between 10th of March 1955 and 25th of September 1959 and that, although it was signed during the aforesaid period, it was actually antedated by inserting the date of 15th of January 1954.

(11) Third condition which is necessary to be satisfied is that the offences must be alleged to have been committed in respect f a document produced or given in evidence in the proceeding before the court. From the facts already recited, it is quite clear, that the only document which was produced before the Tribunal was the Contract Exhibit 83. Therefore, it is quite clear that the charges of forgery, in so far as they are based upon that document, Exhibit 83 would come within the purview of clause (1) (c) aforesaid. But the fact already recited show the one of the charges relates to a false entry in the stamp register which was maintained by respondent No.1. That stamp register was never produced before the Tribunal. The charges levelled against the three respondents in respect of entry in the Stamp register are that respondents Nos. 2 and 3 abetted respondent No.1 in committing that forgery and thereby committed under Sec, 465, read with Section 109 of the Indian Penal Code. Therefore, so far as this set of charges under Secs. 465 and 465 read with Sec. 109 is concerned, in so far as it relates to the forging of this stamp register; it does not come within the purview of the third condition aforesaid. The respondents, however, contend that though the charges in relation to the aforesaid offences do not come directly within the purview of the expression "a document produced in such proceeding", the stamp register should be held to be falling within that particular description by resort to a principle on which, in the submission of the respondents, the section itself is based. Therefore, another question which requires to be examined in the present case, is whether there is any such principle in existence, and if so, whether the stamp register can be said to be a document within the purview, of clause (c) aforesaid on the basis of such a principle.

(17) In AIR 1916 All 299, Bhawani Das v. Emperor in which a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court was called upon to construe the expression "offence committed by a party" as used prior to the amendment of that expression by the amending Act of 1923,Piggot J., in a passage which has been regarded in several future cases as a classical expression himself as follows on that subject at page 301:
"Sub-sections (a) and (b) of S.195 (1) are intended to restrain private individuals from coming forward to demand the punishment of certain offences against the lawful authority of public servants, or the administration of public justice except under the authority of the public servant or the Court of justice concerned. The Legislature has seen fit in sub-clause (c), to extend this prohibition to a certain limited class of offences not exactly ejusdem generis with generis with either of the above. Yet it is clear that when a party to a civil suit forges a document for purpose of that suit and then produces it in support of his claim, he has committed an offence punishable under S. 195, I.P.C and for these offences he cannot be prosecuted without the sanction of the Court. It would be something of an anomaly too maintain this prohibiting, and yet to permit a prosecution without any sanction for the graver offences of forgery and of using as genuine forged document. Moreover, the Legislature doubtless intended to prevent the possibility of any such scandal to the administration of justice as is generally understood to have occurred in the historical case of the prosecution for forgery of the Maharaja Nand Kumar (Nuncomar). It was not considered proper to leave it open to the defendant in a civil suit to carry the question of the genuineness of the plaintiff's document of title before a different tribunal by instituting a prosecuting against the plaintiff, alleging him have forged the same or to have made use of it knowing it to be forged. If the Legislature had seen fit to limit the prohibition to the prosecution without sanction of a party of "a party to any proceeding pending in any Court in respect of a document", etc., there could have been no serious doubt as to the meaning of the words; but the prohibition would have ceased to be effective as soon as the suit was decided. It may well be that this was considered practically inconvenient, in view of the possible filing of an appeal after prosecution had been instituted or it may have been thought advisable, as already suggested, to make the prohibition as against parties to a proceeding in a Civil Court, co-extensive with the prohibition in respect of the offences of fabricating false evidence already embodied in S. 195(1) (b)".

(26) We will discus the second question first. Now, Mr.Desai, whilst conceding that the charge in respect of the first alternative set of charges in so far as they relate to the stamp register does not fail directly within clause (c) inasmuch as that stamp register itself was not produced before the Tribunal, contends that, by an equitable construction of clause (c), that charge must also be held as coming within the purview of that clause. Firstly, he contends that the charge in relation to the crime with reference to the stamp register is so connected with the principal charge and the charges in relation to the contract of sale, that, if the principle underlying clause (c) were not to be applied to that alternative charge, then, the object which the Legislature had in view of avoiding a conflict of judicial decisions in relation to one and the same document will be frustrated. He contends that, if the object of the Legislature in enacting clause (c) were that the parent Court should or should not be prosecuted for an offence in relation to a document produced before it, then, if there is another document which though not produced, is so connected with the first document that the offence of forgery in respect of one could not be said to have been committed unless an offence of forgery is committed in relation to the other document, then, a situation is likely to arise wherein the parent Court may hold the document produced to be a genuine one and a criminal Court may hold that the subsidiary document was a forgery. He says that it is on this particular principle that the Full Bench in Jashwantlal's case 62 Bom LR 527 extended the principle to a non-party in spite of the fact that a non-party is not expressly included within clause (c). The principle underlying that decisions has been thus enunciated by the learned Chief Justice at page 532: