UCO BANK Vs. D NATH AND CO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY the present first appeal under Section 96 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC) the appellant bank seeks to impugn the judgment and decree dated 13.10.1999 whereby the suit of the respondent No.1/plaintiff was decreed against the appellant bank on account of having passed three forged cheques9*.

(2.) THE facts of the case are that the accountant of the respondent No.1 Mr. Rajinder Kumar Joshi alongwith one Sh. Subhash Chand, defendants no.2 and 3 in the suit, stole the cheques of the respondent No.1 company and forged the signatures of its partner Sh. Ram Kumar. THEse three cheques were thereafter got encashed and amounts realized by these persons and who are respondent Nos.2 and 3 herein. THE details of the forged cheques are as under:-

(3.) WHILE dealing with the issue No.1, the trial Court has examined the entire evidence in the case in this regard. On the one hand there was evidence of one Sh. V. K. Khanna who was the Principal Scientific Officer of CFSL, CBI and whose evidence was led as an expert witness by the respondent No.1/plaintiff, the appellant led evidence of two witnesses. The first witness of the appellant was its Chief Manager Sh. R.K. Khera who was said to have about 28 years experience in passing of bank cheques though who did not pass the forged cheques. The bank also examined one handwriting expert V.K. Sakhuja as its other witness. After considering the expert evidence led on behalf of both the parties, the Court itself compared the disputed signatures with the admitted signatures and thereafter with reference to the evidence led by both the parties gave the following conclusions in paras 12 to 14 of the impugned judgment and which read as under:-