BEHARI LAL Vs. BALDEV SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BEHARI Lal has filed this petition for the quashing of a charge which was required to be framed against him and respondents No. 2 to 4 by the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Gidderbaha. by his order dated January 10, 1980, in relation to the commission of offences under sections 167 and 468 of the Indian Penal Code. It was Balhar Singh respondent No. 1 who filed a complaint on November 12, 1976, in relation to the offences committed on December 11, 1965. At that time Jagir Singh respondent No. 2 was working as a Naib -Tehsildar and Prem Kumar respondent No. 4 was posted as a Patwari under him at Malout. A certain shop belonging to Balhar Singh and his father Takhat Singh was situated in the agricultural land pertaining to a certain khasra number. The accused persons were said to have conspired together for the making of a false entry in the revenve records so as to show that the above said shop stood mortgaged on behalf of Balhar Singh and Takhat Singh in favour of Behari Lal, the petitioner. The mutation attested by Jagir Singh on the basis or the alleged mortgage was subsequently set aside at the instance of the petitioner. He then thought of prosecuting the accused persons and then made the complaint.

(2.) SO far as the offence under section 167 of the Indian Penal Code is concerned, there was a limitation of only three years for prosecution as provided by section 468 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The accused persons could not, therefore, be tried for that offence on a complaint filed after more than ten years of the commission of the offence. The learned trial Magistrate has wrongly mentioned the other section being applicable as section 468 of the Indian Penal Code. That provision relates to cheating by forgery. The relevant section is 467 of the Indian Penal Code and the discussion in the impugned order also shows that the Magistrate wanted to frame a charge under section 467 of the Indian Penal Code, as he discussed this point whether entering a wrong mutation would amount to forging a valuable security. The accused persons can be taken to have committed an offence under section 467 of the Indian Penal Code if they can be said to have forged a valuable security; and in case an entry about a mutation cannot be said to be a valuable security, no such offence as contemplated by section 467 of the Indian Penal Code can be held to be committed. According to the definition as given in section 30 of the Indian Penal Code valuable security denotes such a document where by any legal right is created or whereby any person acknowledges that he fits under a legal liability or has not a certain legal right. A mutation cannot be said to be such a kind of document which creates any title. it is not being alleged that some such document was forged on the basis of which the mutation was entered. If that were so, the forged document produced for the making of an entry in the mutation register would have resulted in the forging of valuable security and the prosecution of the accused persons would have been valid. Thus the attestation of a mutation based on false information cannot make out an offence under section 467 of the Indian Penal Code. There is absolutely no basis for the framing of a charge under section 468 of the Indian Penal Code which was wrongly mentioned by the Magistrate in his order. Thus the prosecution of all the accused persons in relation to the offence under sections 167 and 467 or 469 of the Indian Penal Code is quashed in the present petition filed under section 492 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Order accordingly.