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" 11. Under Section 470 of the Indian Penal Code 'false document' made wholly or in part by 'forgery' is designated a 'forged document'. 'Forgery' has been defined in Section 463 of the Indian Penal Code to mean making of a 'false document' with any intents mentioned therein; and 'false document' has been defined under Section 464 of the Indian Penal Code. Under the first clause of Section 464 which is relevant for our purposes, a person makes a false document if he makes or signs a document - (i) intending it to be believed that it was made or signed or executed by, or by the authority of, some person by whom, or by whose authority, he knows it was not made or signed, or (ii) with the intent that it shall be believed that it was made or signed at a time when he knows it was not so made or so signed.

15. The sale deeds executed by the first appellant, clearly and obviously do not fall under the second and third categories of "false documents". It therefore remains to be seen whether the claim of the complainant that the execution of sale deeds by the first accused, who was in no way connected with the land, amounted to committing forgery of the documents with the intention of taking possession of the complainant's land (and that Accused 2 to 5 as the purchaser, witness, scribe and stamp vendor, colluded with the first accused in execution and registration of the said sale deeds) would bring the case under the first category.

17. When the document is executed by a person claiming a property which is not his, he is not claiming that he is someone else nor is he claiming that he is authorised by someone else. Therefore, execution of such document (purporting to convey some property of which he is not the owner) is not execution of a false document as defined under Section 464 of the Code. If what is executed is not a false document, there is no forgery. If there is no forgery, then neither Section 467 nor Section 471 of the Code are attracted."

10. It would be trite to mention that the ratio laid down in Md. Ibrahim's Case (supra) would hold good vis-a-vis Section 472 of the Penal Code as well because forgery is the foundation of this provision too.

11. If the facts of the present case are seen in the light of the ratios referred to above, it will be abundantly clear that the purported offending payment advice issued by the petitioner was neither a false document nor an outcome of forgery. The document did not lie about itself. It was executed by the petitioner in his capacity as the Principal Investigator of the project. He used the designation Assistant Director (Sr.) of the CNCI instead of the actual position of Assistant Director, the term (Sr.) being written in ink. For such an act, the petitioner could at the worst be reprimanded for an unjust aggrandizement of ego. But, this had not and could not have given the petitioner any advantage in executing such a payment advice. In fact, in their statements as present in the Case Diary, two bank officials admitted that due to mistake they acted on such advice. On the other hand, it is quite perturbing to note that although the First Information Report and the statement of the Administrative Officer as recorded by the Investigating Officer categorically mention that there was no post of an Assistant Direct (Sr.) in the concern, their statements blissfully avoid mentioning that the petitioner was nevertheless an Assistant Director of CNCI. By any stretch of imagination, putting the suffix "(Sr.)" with ink after the actual designation of "Assistant Director" by the said Assistant Director himself cannot be treated as an act of forgery or render the document a false one, especially in the facts and circumstances of the present case. It is another thing that the other supposedly authorised person for executing the payment advice did not participate and yet, the admittedly inept bank officials acted on such inchoate advice. Since, the offending document is not a false one or an act of forgery, the petitioner cannot be imputed with charges under Sections 467 and 472 of the Penal Code.