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(3) A complaint made under this section shall be signed,

(a) where the Court making the complaint is a High Court, by such officer of the Court as the Court may appoint;

(b) in any other case, by the presiding officer of the Court.

(4) In this section, 'Court' has the same meaning as in section 195.

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6. Upon a plain reading of the two provisions, it immediately becomes clear that where the bar under Section 195(1)(b)(ii) operates, the procedure prescribed under Section 340 of the CrPC gets triggered. The question as to when the bar under Section 195 operates has been settled by the Supreme Court in the case of Iqbal Singh Marwah (supra). In that case, what had happened was that in a probate case, pending before the District Judge, Delhi, a will was set up by one of the parties seeking probate. The same was contested on the ground that the will was a forged one. In the probate proceedings, an application under Section 340 CrPC had been filed. However, that application was kept pending and no decision was arrived at on the application. During the pendency of the said probate proceedings and the said application under Section 340 CrPC, the respondents also filed a criminal complaint before the court of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, New Delhi for prosecution under Sections 192, 193, 463, 464, 465, 467, 469, 471, 499 & 500 IPC on the ground that the will set up by the petitioners in the probate case was a forged and fictutious document. The Metropolitan Magistrate, upon consideration of the arguments made before him, came to the conclusion that the question whether the will was a genuine document or a forged one was an issue before the District Judge in the probate proceedings where the will had been filed and, therefore, Section 195(1)(b)(i) and (ii) CrPC operated as a bar for taking cognizance of the offences. The criminal complaint was, accordingly, dismissed by the Metropolitan Magistrate. When a criminal revision against the said order came up before the Sessions Judge, he, relying upon the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Sachida Nand Singh and Anr. v. State of Bihar Anr. 1998 (2) SCC 493, held that the bar contained in Section 195(1)(b)(ii) CrPC would not apply where the forgery of a document was committed before the said document was produced in court. Accordingly, the revision petition was allowed and the matter was remanded to the court of the Metropolitan Magistrate to proceed in accordance with law. The matter was taken up to the Delhi High Court under Section 482 CrPC, but the same was dismissed following the law laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of Sachida Nand Singh (supra). Thereafter, the matter came up before the Supreme Court. While examining the question of the bar under Section 195 CrPC, the Supreme Court observed that the main controversy revolved around the interpretation of the expression 'when such offence is alleged to have been committed in respect of a document produced or given in evidence in a proceeding in any court' occurring in clause (b) (ii) of sub-section 1 of Section 195 of the CrPC. The Supreme Court observed that there were two views possible. One view was the one that was expressed by the Supreme Court in its earlier decision in Surjit Singh and Ors. v. Balbir Singh and particularly as mentioned in paragraph 10 thereof which reads as under:-

10. It would thus be clear that for taking cognizance of an offence, the document, the foundation for forgery, if produced before the court or given Page 1070 in evidence, the bar of taking cognizance under Section 195(1)(b)(ii) gets attracted and the criminal court is prohibited from taking cognizance of offence unless a complaint in writing is filed as per the procedure prescribed under Section 340 of the Code by or on behalf of the court. The object thereby is to preserve purity of the administration of justice and to allow the parties to adduce evidence in proof of certain documents without being compelled or intimidated to proceed with the judicial process. The bar of Section 195 is to take cognizance of the offences covered there under.

The other possible view was expressed in Sachida Nand Singh's (supra) case wherein the Supreme Court observed as under:-

A reading of the clause reveals two main postulates for operation of the bar mentioned there. First is, there must be allegation that an offence (it should be either an offence described in Section 463 or any other offence punishable under Sections 471, 475, 476 of the IPC) has been committed. Second is that such offence should have been committed in respect of a document produced or given in evidence in a proceeding in any court. There is no dispute before us that if forgery has been committed while the document was in the custody of a court, then prosecution can be launched only with a complaint made by that court. There is also no dispute that if forgery was committed with a document which has not been produced in a court then the prosecution would lie at the instance of any person. If so, will its production in a court make all the difference.