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“8. That apart it is difficult to in- terpret Section 195(1)(b)(ii) as con- taining a bar against initiation of prosecution proceedings merely be- cause the document concerned was pro- duced in a court albeit the act of forgery was perpetrated prior to its production in the Court. Any such construction is likely to ensue un- savoury consequences. For instance, if rank forgery of a valuable docu- ment is detected and the forgerer is sure that he would imminently be em- broiled in prosecution proceedings he can simply get that document produced in any long-drawn litigation which was either instituted by himself or somebody else who can be influenced by him and thereby pre-empt the pros- ecution for the entire long period of pendency of that litigation. It is a settled proposition that if the lan- guage of a legislation is capable of more than one interpretation, the one which is capable of causing mis- chievous consequences should be averted. Quoting from Gill v. Donald Humberstone & Co. Ltd.5 Maxwell has stated in his treatise (Interpreta- tion of Statutes, 12th Edn., p. 105) that “if the language is capable of more than one interpretation we ought to discard the more natural meaning if it leads to unreasonable result and adopt that interpretation which leads to a reasonably practicable re- sult”. The clause which we are now considering contains enough indica- tion to show that the more natural meaning is that which leans in favour of a strict construction, and hence the aforesaid observation is emi- nently applicable here.
11. The scope of the preliminary en-

quiry envisaged in Section 340(1) of the Code is to ascertain whether any offence affecting administration of justice has been committed in respect of a document produced in court or given in evidence in a proceeding in that Court. In other words, the of- fence should have been committed dur- ing the time when the document was in custodia legis.

23. The sequitur of the above discus- sion is that the bar contained in Section 195(1)(b)(ii) of the Code is not applicable to a case where forgery of the document was committed before the document was produced in a court. Accordingly we dismiss this appeal.”

12. It is also relevant to note that observations have been made by this Court that forgery of a document if committed far outside the precincts of the Court and long before its production in the Court, the same cannot be treated as one affecting administration of justice. In Para 12, following has been held:-

“12. It would be a strained thinking that any offence involving forgery of a document if committed far outside the precincts of the Court and long before its production in the Court, could also be treated as one affect- ing administration of justice merely because that document later reached the court records.”