P S NARAYANA AYYAR Vs. NKKUNHIMOIDIN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are appeals by the 2nd and 1st accused respectively against the convictions and sentences passed upon them in Sessions Case No. 57 of 1913 on the file of the Sessions Court of South Malabar. The first accused P.S. Narayana Aiyar was the Head Clerk of the Stationary Sub-Magistrate s Court of Manjeri and the 2nd accused was an attender in that Court between November 1911 and June 1912. They were charged, the 1st accused with having fabricated and forged the bail bond, Exhibit A, and the 2nd accused with the fabrication and forgery and also with abetment of those offences.

(2.) The facts are a little complicated. There was a Calendar Case No. 562 of 1911 in that Court in which the prosecution witness No. 6, Unni Mamu, was the accused and in which prosecution witness No. 7, Kutti Rayan, had stood surety for the 6th witness, Unni Mamu. On the 4th November 1911 this Kutti Rayan, P.W. No. 7, executed the genuine bail bond, Exhibit B, to produce the accused Unni Mamu on the subsequent days fixed for the hearing of that Calender Case, No. 562 of 1912. In January 1912 another Calendar Case No. 26 of 1912 before the Sub-Divisional 1st Class Magistrate of Calicut (not the Stationary Sub-Magistrate of Manjeri) was commenced against one Cheku Gurukal and others on a charge of having committed an offence at Calicut on the 4th November 1911.

(3.) Cheku Gurukal pleaded alibi at Manjeri and wanted to support that plea by fabricating evidence that on the 4th November 1911 (the date on which according to the charge against him in Calender Case No. 26 of 1912 he committed an offence at Calicut) he was in the Manjeri Stationary Sub-Magistrate s Court signing a bail bond on behalf of Unni Mamu, the accused in Calender Case No. 562 of 1911 on the file of the Stationary Sub-Magistrate s Court. He approached the Court attender, 2nd accused in this case, before the end of February 1912 in order that a bail bond purporting to be executed by him on 4th November 1911 might be substituted in the records of Calendar Case No. 562 of 1911 for the genuine bail bond, Exhibit B, which had been already executed by Kutti Rayan. The forged bail bond, Exhibit A, which is in the handwriting of the 2nd accused was accordingly prepared and substituted in the records of Calendar Case No. 562 of 1911. This was, as I said, before the end of February 1912 and after 16th January 1912, and while that Case No. 562 of 1911 was pending in the Sub- Magistrate s Court. Then Chekhu Gurukal, the accused in Calendar Case No. 26 of 1912 on the file of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate s Court, applied for a copy of the bail bond falsely alleging that he had executed on the 4th November 1911 a bail bond in the Stationary Sub-Magistrate s Court and got the copy, Exhibit R, which was written by the prosecution witness No. 9 in this case, a copyist of the Stationary Sub-Magistrate s Court. He produced that copy in Calendar Case No. 26 of 1912 to prove his absence from Calicut on the 4th November 1911, but his alibi was disbelieved and he was convicted in that case. Meanwhile suspicion had arisen as to the genuineness of the original of the copy, Exhibit R, and inquiries were started in the beginning of May 1912. Both Exhibits B and A were missing from the records of Calendar Case No. 562 of 1911. Then the P.W. No. 10, the Bench Clerk of the Stationary Sub-Magistrate s Court, produced the forged bond, Exhibit A, to the Sub-Magistrate and made some statements as to how it was not placed among the records when they were sent to the record room on 1st May 1912 after the Case No. 562 of 1911 had been decided. Then the 2nd accused produced the genuine bail bond, Exhibit B, some months afterwards and he gave some explanation as to why it had got out of the records of Calendar Case No. 562, 1911. Then the case was started against these two accused and also against Cheku Grurukal who was first charged as the 3rd accused in this case, he having placed Unni Mamu s mark upon the antedated forged bail bond, Exhibit A. Cheku Gurukal was then taken as (SIC) IMAGE NOT REDABLE and he has been examined as P.W. No. 5 in this case.