SHOBHARANI DATTA Vs. SANTOSHKUMAR BAKSHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a decision of the Officiating Additional Subordinate Judge, Burdwan, reversing a decision of the Munsif of Burdwan. The suit was for a declaration that a mortgage bond, alleged to have been executed by Panchukrishna Bakshi, who was the plaintiff's fourth brother, was a spurious and fabricated document; that there was no consideration for it, and that it was void. The bond purported to have been given on 10 Poush 1337, in favour of the defendant, Sreemati Shobharani Datta for a sum of Rs. 150, which, it was alleged, had been lent by this woman to Panchukrishna Panohukrishna died within two months of the alleged date of the bond and it was registered after his death.

(2.) The plaintiff's allegation was that the alleged signatures of Panchukrishna on the bond did not tally with his admitted signatures on other documents and that consequently the document was a fabrication, and the allegation that this women lent Panohukrishna Rs. 150 upon it was untrue.

(3.) The Munsif came to the conclusion that the signatures were genuine and that consequently the document was genuine, and had been given in respect of the loan alleged to have been made by Sreemati Shobharani Datta. The Officiating Additional Subordinate Judge disagreed with this finding and came to the conclusion that all the signatures upon the document, except one, were forgeries, and that no loan had been made by this woman to Panohukrishna. The reasons why he came to this conclusion were the following: Panchukrishna's alleged signature upon the first page of the bond, upon which the stamp appears, was genuine, as it tallied with Panchu's admitted signatures. The rest of the signatures were forgeries, because they differed altogether from his admitted signatures and from the first signature on the bond. The learned Judge deduced from these and other facts, to which I will refer in a moment, that Panchu signed the first page with the stamp upon it in blank and that, after his death, the other pages were added to the bond, and the signatures forged upon them, in furtherance of a conspiracy between the defendant's uncle, one Phakir Mitra and the defendant and the witnesses called on her behalf. In confirmation of the truth of this deduction, there was the fact that the document was not registered until after Panchu's death: Secondly, that Panchu did, in fact, owe Rs. 150 to Phakir Mitra for medicines supplied to him, which sum coincided exactly with the sum alleged to have been lent by the defendant. Phakir contradicted another of defendant's witnesses, one Jateendramohan De, on the point whether Rs, 150 was owing by Panchu to Phakir. Phakir alleged that only Rs. 40 was due. The probable reason for this was that he appreciated how damaging was the coincidence between the amount of the debt owed by Panchu to him, as stated by Jateendra, and the amount of the loan which was alleged to have been made by the defendant. Further the Judge found that all the defendant's witnesses were more or less under the influence of Phakir. It seems to me clear therefore that the decision of the learned Subordinate Judge turned solely upon questions of fact.