BASRUR VENKATA ROW Vs. CROWN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant, who was the 1st accused in Sessions Case No. 19 of 1910 in the Sessions Court of South Canara, was tried along with two other persons, the appellant for the forgery, and two others for abetment of the forgery, of certain documents. These documents were certain income tax records in the Udipi Taluq office in the office of the Head Assistant Collector of South Canara. The forged documents related to the assessment to income tax of one Vishnumurti Upadhya for the year 1905-1906. The prosecution alleges thai the B. Schedule of income put in by Vishnumurti under the Income-Tax Act, the Takid issued to the Village officers of Gundmi to send a report, the Takid issued to the Patel of Gundmi to communicate to the assessee the order of confirmation of the tax, the deposition of Vishnumurti before the Village officers, the deposition of Venkirtatrrnana Bhatta (a witness) before them, the list of the houses prepared by the Shanbhog and the report submitted by him to the Tahsildar, were all replaced with forged documents in substitution for the original ones, and that an interpolation was made in the deposition of Vishnumurti before the Head Assistant Collector after the confirmation of the tax. Three of the above documents were selected as the subject- matter of the charges against the accused, namely, the deposition of Vishnumurti before the Tahsildar, Exhibit B, the B. Schedule pnt in by him. Exhibit Y, and the interpolation in his statement before the Head Assistant Collector Exhibit H, Exhibit H 1 being the interpolation. These forgeries are alleged to have been made in the interest of one Nagappa Hande. Nagappa was also charged with forgery before the Committing Magistrate but died after his commitment to the Sessions Court. These two persons, Nagappa Hande and Vishnumurti, financed one Tammava Urala in 1897 in a partition suit instituted by Tammaya Urala against his undivided co-parceners. Nagappa obtained a mortgage bond from Tammaya Urala and executed a mortgage himself in favour of Vishnumurti on the 24th March 1898. Nagappa alleged that the mortgage debt due to Vishnurnurthi by him was discharged except a small portion. In 1898 Vishnumurti filed a suit in the District Court of South Canara on the mortgage-deed and produced a copy of it. The suit was transferred to the Sub-Court where it was registered as O.S. No. 53 of 1909. According to Vishnumurti and the prosecution case here, Nagaopa made no payment whatever towards the mortgage. Nagappa, in support of his plea that the major portion of the debt has been paid off, produced along with his written statement certain correspondence which he alleged passed between him and Vishnumurti in 1898, 1899, 1904,1905 and 1906, as well as receipts and acknowledgments for payments made by him. Vishnumurti denounced those documents as forgeries. When Vishnumurti was being cross-examined in the Sub-Court as a witness he was shown certain certified copies of income-tax proceedings relating to him and cross-examined with reference to them. He denounced these also as forgeries. They were not filed in the Sub-Court, though the plaintiff Vishnumurti and the Court called upon Nagappa Hande to produce them. Nagappa applied for copies of these income-tax proceedings in February 1909; these certified conies were the documents used at the cross-examination of Vishnumurti. The first accused is alleged to be the writer of these documents. He is a petition writer by profession; the 2nd and 3rd accused were respectively an at tender of the Head Assistant Collector s office and the record-keeper of the Udipi Taluq office. They are alleged to have helped Nagappa in obtaining the records of these two offices. The Sessions Judge, after a very elaborate enquiry, convicted the 1st accused and acquitted the 2 nd and 3rd accused. The 1st accused has appealed to this court from his conviction.

(2.) Most of the evidence in the case was adduced for proving that the documents in question, including those which formed the subjects of the charges against the accused, were forgeries. The major portion of the judgment of the learned Sessions Judge is also devoted to the establishment of that proposition. The appellant has not contended before this court that that finding is wrong. The question we have to decide is whether the prosecution has satisfactorily proved that the appellant was the writer of Exhibits B, Y and H. There is no direct evidence on record that the accused was the forger. The conviction is based on the evidence of prosecution witness No. 12, Mr. Charles Hardless, Government handwriting expert, who was examined to prove that these documents are in the handwriting of the accused, and on certain other evidence which was relied on in corroboration of the evidence of prosecution witness No. 12. It will be convenient to examine the corroborative evidence before proceeding to deal with the evidence of the expert.

(3.) The facts alleged to corroborate the expert evidence are these: (1) that the accused was on intimate terms with Nagappa and used to write documents for him and others connected with him. (2) that the accused visited Nagappa in January 1909 when, according to the prosecution, the forgeries must have been committed ; (3) that the accused received a considerable sum of money from Nagappa in 1909 and that the latter raised a loan from one Mahabala Rao, prosecution witness No. 37, in January 1909, apparently to be paid to the accused ; and (4) that the accused was a man who used to forge documents as shown by Exhibit discovered at a1 search of his house a paper containing the signatures of certain persons in the handwriting of the accused.