(1.) THE appellant E. D. Chacko stands convicted by the sessions Judge of Trivandrum under S. 467,468, 471 and 420 read with S. 511, I. P. C. and sentenced to Rigorous Imprisonment for three years under S. 467 and for two years each under the other sections read with S. 511, IPC. THE sentences are directed to run concurrently.
(2.) THE case against the accused is that he forged the number in a lottery ticket and claimed the amount from the Government under whose auspices the lottery is conducted. THE drawing of the lottery was held on 26-1-1968 and the results were published in the Kerala Gazette No. 5 dated 30 11968. Two second prizes to the value of Rs. 10,000/ -each had been announced and one of the two tickets which won the second prize was ticket No. C. 46837. For some day after the publication of the result nobody came forward to claim the prize due under the above ticket. So, a press release was issued by the director of State Lotteries on 10 21968, calling upon the holder of this ticket to produce it and receive the prize. (Along with this number a few other numbers were also announced as not claimed.) On 17 21968 the accused sent a letter to the Director of State Lotteries intimating him that he was in possession of ticket No. C. 46837. On receipt of his letter, the Director sent a telegram to him on 19 2 68 asking him to produce the ticket before the district Treasury Officer, Kottayam, for verification. But the accused did not produce the ticket as directed. On 12 31968, he produced it before the Director and claimed the prize money. THE ticket was found to be soiled and the number in the ticket found illegible. THE Director got suspicious about the genuineness of the ticket and he forwarded it to the Forensic Science laboratory for examination. It was examined by the Assistant Director and examiner of Questioned Documents and found that the first, second, fourth and fifth digits in the number of the ticket had been tampered with. THEreupon, the director lodged a complaint with the Superintendent of Police, Crime Branch C. I. D. on 29 6 68 and on the basis of the complaint the case was registered under S. 467, 468, 471 and 420 read with S. 511, IPC. and the accused was arrested on 14 71968. In the course of the investigation, on the information supplied by the accused, M. Os. 2 to 15 were recovered. In pursuance of the information given by the accused, a tin was unearthed from the bed of a coffee plant standing in the courtyard of his house.
(3.) THE accused stated that he was the holder of ticket no. C. 46837 and the same had been produced by him before Pw4, the Director of treasuries, Trivandrum on 12 31968. Ex. P13 is the receipt issued to the accused by Pw4 on receipt of ticket. In his S. 342 examination, the accused tried to build up a case that M. 0. 1 is not the ticket produced by him before pw4. According to him M. O. 1 looks soiled, while the ticket produced by him was not so soiled. Pw4 is positive that the ticket produced by the accused was M. O. land no other. In Ex. P13 there is no statement that the ticket looked soiled and this circumstance was relied on by the learned counsel to show that at the time the ticket was produced it was not soiled. But the accused himself, as is seen from Ex P8 and P9 letters, was convinced that the ticket was soiled when he produced it. Ex. P9 dated 8 61968 is the letter addressed by the accused to pw4, Director of Treasuries. THErein he has stated that the ticket was soiled. To quote his own words: In the face of this clear admission, it is not now open to him to argue that the ticket was not soiled at the time he produced it before Pw4. Learned counsel argued that to prove the tampering we have only the uncorroborated testimony of the experts and no conclusion can be entered on such evidence. THE position is no doubt, unassailable that no conviction can be entered solely on the uncorroborated testimony of an expert. But in the present case, their evidence stands corroborated by the recovery of M. Os. 3 to 15 from the accused's house on information furnished by him. M. 0. 3 series are lead types bearing digits from 0 to 9. M. O. 4 is a screw containing the digits (0 to 9) with a nut. M. O. 5 is the type of letter 'c'. M. O. 6 is a magnifying eye glass. M. 0. 7 is a bottle containing red printing ink. M. 0. 8 is a lottery ticket. M. 0. 9 are ink pads 2 (small) red in colour. M. 0. 10 is a paper containing some numbers. M. 0. 11 is ink covered in oil paper. M. 0. 12 series are Carat blade and two pieces of papers. M. 0. 13 is a piece of paper containing the name and address of V. Vasumalai. M. 0. 14 is a bus ticket issued by Southern Road Ways and M. 0. 15 is an iron chissel covered by white piece of cloth. All these were kept buried under a coffee plant in the accused's compound. pws. 7 and 8 have attested the recovery mahazar. THE recovery of these articles is in a tell-tale circumstance connecting the accused with the forgery. He has no explanation worth-considering as to why these articles were kept by him. It is particularly significant that other tickets bearing some of the identical digits were also kept by him. M. 0. 2 is a tin in which these implements were kept. THE prosecution has succeeded in showing that these implements were made use of in one form or other for erasing the unwanted digits from the ticket and substituting in their place other required digits. On a comparison of the ink scrapped from the digits in the disc attached to M. 0. 4 and the ink in M. 0. 7 and the ink used for printing the digits and the letters V. No. ' in M. 0. 1, with the ink scrapped from M. 0. 4 and the ink in M. 0. 7, following conclusions were reached: (1) THE ink of the numeral '8' in M. O. 1 is not identical with the ink of other numerals in M. 0. 1. (2) THE ink of letters 'c No. ' of M. O. 1 Is not identical with the ink of numerals other than '8' in M. O. 1. (3) THE ink scrapped from M. 0. 4 and the ink in M 0. 7 are similar; and (4) It is possible that the numerals other than '8' in m. O1 could have been printed by the ink in M. O. 7. On a careful consideration of the matter in the light of the above conclusions I am satisfied that the conclusions are correct and can be relied on.