SACHIDA NAND SINGH Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Can prosecution be maintained in respect of a forged document produced in court unless complaint has been filed by the court concerned in that behalf In other words, the question involved in this appeal is, whether the prohibition contained in S. 195(1)(b)(ii) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short 'the Code') would apply to such prosecution. The aforesaid question, ticklish it may appear to some extent, seemed to have received a quietus from this Court with the pronouncement in Patel Laljibhai Somabha v. The State of Gujarat, AIR 1971 SC 1935 while considering the scope of its corresponding provision in the old Code of Criminal Procedure 1898. But a subsequent decision of this Court in Gopalkrishna Menon v. D. Raja Reddy (1983) 4 SCC 240 which struck a different note thereon seemed to have revived the issue and kept it buoying up in the legal stream. That question, in this appeal, has arisen from the following facts:

(2.) A complaint was filed by second respondent (Lal Narain Singh) in the court of a Chief Judicial Magistrate, alleging offences, inter alia, under Ss. 468, 469 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code on the facts that appellants had forged a document (certified copy of Jamabandi-Rent Roll) and produced it in a court of Executive Magistrate which was then dealing with proceedings under S. 145 of the Code. Chief Judicial Magistrate forwarded the complaint to the police as provided in S. 156(3) of the Code. Police registered an FIR on the basis of the said complaint and after investigation laid a charge-sheet against appellants for those offences. The Chief Judicial Magistrate took cognizance of those offences and issued process to the accused. Appellants then moved Patna High Court under S. 482 of the Code for quashing the prosecution on the main ground that the Magistrate could not have taken cognizance of the said offences in view of the bar contained in S. 195(1)(b)(ii) of the Code.

(3.) Before the High Court, appellants cited the decision of this Court in Gopala Krishna Menon (supra) but a single Judge of the High Court dismissed the said petition filed under S. 482 by relying on a later decision of this Court in Mahadev Bapuji Mahajan v. State of Maharashtra, AIR 1994 SC 1549 . Appellants therefore, filed this appeal by special leave.