HARUN RASHID Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant before us has been convicted by the learned Sessions Judge of Cachar under Secs.467/471, Indian Penal Code, and has been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of six years. He was put on his trial along with four others--Shajid Ali, Atar Ali, Yakub Ali and Salim Mia, they being charged under Section 467 with forgery and he being charged under Section 467 read with Section 109 of abetment of forgery. The four others were acquitted. The trial was with the aid of three assessors who found the accused guilty of having abetted the forgery of a pertain document.

(2.) The case for the prosecution was that the accused Shajid Ali had written out a kobala by which Mahomed Yusuf, and Sultan Mahomed purported to convey to the accused, Harun Rashid, 120 bighas of land for Rs. 4,000, the consideration being accounted for as follows, namely, Rs. 2,000 due to Harun Rashid on account of a certain debt and Rs. 2,000 commission due to him from them. In other words, no money was alleged to have been paid at the time of the execution of the kobala. The three witnesses to the execution of the kabala were the accused Atar Ali, Yakub Ali and Salim Mia who were discharged by the Judge as not knowing that the deed was a forgery. As regards the accused Shajid Ali, there was evidence that he had written out the kabala in question. The assessors found him guilty of forgery but the learned Sessions Judge, being of opinion that there was nothing to show that Shajid Ali did not write out the kobala bona fide at Harun's request, acquitted him as stated above. The charge against the appellant Harun Rashid was that he had abetted the forgery of a valuable security which was forged in consequence of his abetment.

(3.) The evidence goes to show that he presented the kobala for registration at the Sub- Registrar's Office. The Sub-Registrar thereupon called on the alleged executants to attend and thereafter the alleged executants appeared and denied execution of the document. The learned Sessions Judge found on the evidence that there could be no doubt whatsoever that the kobala in question was a false document. It was clearly a valuable security and its very nature showed that it was made with intent to cause the alleged executants to part with property. It was, therefore, a forged document. He found that there was no evidence worth the name that Harun had abetted the forgery by entering into a conspiracy to procure the forgery, but he was of opinion that the transaction as disclosed in the evidence pointed rather to Harun having committed an offence punishable under Section 471 of the Indian Penal Code, i.e. Harun had used the document as a genuine one knowing that it was a forgery and that the recitals in the said document were all untrue and that his intention was to cause wrongful loss to the alleged executants. The learned Sessions Judge was of opinion that Harun should have been charged under Secs.467/471, Indian Code, the user of the forged document being its presentation to the Sub-Registrar for registration. He accordingly convicted him under the said sections and sentenced him as stated above.