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Case Number

Criminal Appeals Nos. 194 and 207 of 1928

Judges

Courtney-Terrell, C.J

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Structured Summary of the Opinion

Factual and Procedural Background

The appellants, identified at the outset as Baju and Chinta, were tried together with two others (Ramkrishna and Muktinath — the latter two were acquitted) before the Additional Sessions Judge of Bhagalpur on a charge under section 471 of the Indian Penal Code (using as genuine a document known or believed to be forged). The trial resulted in convictions: the first appellant (referred to in the text as Raju) was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for two years and the second appellant, Chinta, to simple imprisonment for one year. An appeal against these convictions followed.

The underlying civil/property facts concern the family of the late Bhailal Jha and a sequence of conveyances and mortgages affecting certain land. Key events include: a conveyance of January 5, 1915 (purportedly by Nachu and Manbharan's widow to Chatur); Chatur executing a mortgage-bond the same day in favour of Palat Singh, who later obtained a mortgage decree, purchased the mortgaged land and obtained possession in 1920; Palat sold his interest in 1924 to Awadhlal Jha. In 1927 Awadhlal alleged removal of crops (charging Baju, Muktinath, Ramkrishna and Chinta) and prosecutions under sections 379 and 143 were instituted; in those proceedings Chinta was ultimately acquitted on the ground that he was unlikely to have played the alleged active part.

To support a possession defence, an endorsement on a sale-deed dated 27th April 1915 was produced; that endorsement had been altered — the name “Chatur” was changed to “Nachu”. The alteration and the endorsement became the focus: the alteration was alleged by the prosecution to be a dishonest alteration (forgery) made to affect the case before the Magistrate. When the alteration came to light during trial, proceedings under section 471 IPC were initiated and resulted in the convictions now under appeal.

Legal Issues Presented

Whether the alteration on the deed endorsement (change of the name “Chatur” to “Nachu”) was a forgery made with dishonest intention to affect the Magistrate's proceedings.
Whether the appellants (in particular Chinta) had "used" the forged document within the meaning of section 471 IPC — i.e., whether participation or instructing counsel/mukhtar to file the document amounted to user.
Whether the phrase "produced or given in evidence" in section 195(c) CrPC limits the meaning of "user" under section 471 IPC to production/giving in evidence only, or whether "produced" has a wider ambit so that other forms of court-use fall within s.471.
Whether the terms "fraudulently" and "dishonestly" in section 471 IPC should be read as requiring an intention to cause wrongful gain to one person or wrongful loss to another (i.e., whether s.24's description limits the scope of "dishonest" so that using a forged document to secure an acquittal is excluded).

Arguments of the Parties

Appellants' Arguments

The alteration to the endorsement was honest and had been made shortly after execution in 1915 (i.e., not made to affect the Magistrate's proceedings).
The property dealings were in substance a farzi transaction (the January 5, 1915 conveyance to Chatur was a sham) and the real possession remained with Nachu and subsequently Baju — thereby undermining Awadhlal's title and negating the theft/unlawful object allegations.
Specifically in respect of Chinta: he did not personally use the forged document in the Magistrate’s Court — he was separately represented by a Pleader, and the document was produced and put in evidence by the mukhtar defending the other accused. Therefore he cannot be held liable under s.471 for "user".
It was argued (defence contention) that “user in a Court of Law” in the context of s.471 must mean production or giving in evidence; reliance was placed on the phrase “produced or given in evidence” in section 195(c) CrPC to restrict "user" to those acts.
An argument was advanced that because s.24 purports to define “dishonestly” as linked to wrongful gain/loss, section 471 should be read as requiring an intention to cause wrongful gain or wrongful loss — and thus using a forged document to secure an acquittal (i.e., no material gain/loss) would fall outside s.471.

Prosecution / Court-facing Evidence and Contentions

The defence story that the alteration was made in 1915 was unsupported by contemporaneous production: in 1916 proceedings under section 141 CrPC the document was not produced by the defence (it would have borne the court's seal if it had been produced then).
No witnesses were called to corroborate the alleged decision of the panchayat or the asserted surrender of the deed to Nachu; evidence available did not support the defence story.
The mukhtar (who defended Baju and others) testified that he filed the deed under instructions from Chinta given in the presence of Baju and other accused, and that upon noticing the alteration he asked Chinta about it and recorded Chinta's explanation.
P.W. No. 3 stated in cross-examination that he had asked Chinta about the alteration and that Chinta said the writer of the endorsement made the alteration at the time he wrote it; this statement was made in the presence of the other appellants who endorsed Chinta's statement.
From the above the prosecution contended that the alteration was a dishonest act done to affect the Magistrate's proceedings and that Chinta's instruction to file the document and his reliance on the possession defence amounted to "use" of the forged document under s.471.

Table of Precedents Cited

Precedent	Rule or Principle Cited For	Application by the Court
Gulabchand Rupji v. Emperor	Demonstrates that the word “produced” in s.195(c) CrPC has a wide ambit — a document presented to Court as a compromise but rejected (on time-bar grounds) was still "produced".	Used to reject the narrow construction that "user" (for s.471) means only giving the document in evidence; supports a broad meaning of "produced" to include various acts of bringing a document before the Court.
Emperor v. Bansi Sheikh	Holds that a document is to be considered "produced" if filed in support of a pleading even though not taken into account by the Court.	Reinforces the point that filing or tendering a document in court proceedings can constitute "production" within s.195(c) and so supports a broader view of what constitutes "use" under s.471 IPC.
Emperor v. Mohit Kumar Mukerjee	Establishes that the words “fraudulently” and “dishonestly” are not limited to intentions of acquiring property or causing deprivation — acquisition or deprivation of property are not essential ingredients of s.471.	Relied upon to reject the defence submission that s.471 must be read to require an intention of wrongful gain or loss; supports the conclusion that using a forged document to secure an acquittal can be “dishonest” within the meaning of the penal provision.

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court proceeded by examining the documentary evidence, the history of the property dealings and the contemporaneous procedural history (notably the absence of production of the altered document in 1916 proceedings under section 141 CrPC). The key analytical steps were:

Fact-finding on alteration: The court accepted that the endorsement on the 27th April 1915 deed had been altered (the name “Chatur” changed to “Nachu”) and observed that both appellants admitted the alteration and attempted to justify it. The court rejected the defence explanation that the alteration was made honestly in 1915 because (a) the document was not produced in 1916 proceedings where it would have been expected to appear and bear the court's seal if the alteration had been then extant; (b) the defence called no corroborative witnesses (e.g., members of the panchayat) though it would have been straightforward to do so; and (c) P.W. No. 3's evidence and the mukhtar's testimony pointed to contemporary acknowledgment that the alteration was made at the time the endorsement was written or otherwise not earlier than the contested period.
Finding of forgery and dishonest intention: On the totality of evidence the court concluded that the alteration had been made with a dishonest intention to affect the case before the Magistrate and therefore amounted to a forgery within the meaning relevant to s.471 IPC.
On whether Chinta "used" the forged document: The court considered Chinta's argument that he did not personally produce or give the document in evidence (he had separate representation). The court placed weight on the mukhtar's evidence that he filed the deed under Chinta's instructions in the presence of the other accused and that Chinta had been consulted about the alteration. Further, the court noted that Chinta had availed himself of the defence that Baju was in possession — thereby taking advantage of the document's content. On these facts the court held that Chinta's conduct amounted to a clear "user" of the document within the meaning of s.471.
On the meaning of “produced” in s.195(c) CrPC and its impact on “user”: The appellants urged a narrow construction that equated "user" with only those acts described in s.195(c) (i.e., production or giving in evidence). The court rejected this narrow reading, reasoning that the disjunctive "or" in s.195(c) and precedents (Gulabchand Rupji and Emperor v. Bansi Sheikh) show that "produced" is wide enough to encompass documents filed or presented to the Court even if not formally taken into evidence or relied upon in the narrow sense.
On the scope of "fraudulently" and "dishonestly": The court rejected the contention that s.24's description of "dishonest" (as involving intention to cause wrongful gain or wrongful loss) exhaustively limits the concept for the purposes of s.471. Relying on Emperor v. Mohit Kumar Mukerjee, the court held that "fraudulently" and "dishonestly" are not so limited; obtaining an acquittal is an advantage and falls within the broader sense of "dishonestly" (referencing also s.14). In short, using a forged document to secure an acquittal can constitute dishonest/fraudulent use under s.471.
Sentencing and proportionality: The court noted that given the nature of the offence and the frequency with which such offences occur, the sentences imposed were not severe and therefore were to be maintained.

Holding and Implications

Final Ruling: The appeals are dismissed and the convictions and sentences imposed by the trial court are maintained. The opinion concludes with the dismissal: "Appeal dismissed."

Implications:

Direct effect on the parties: The convictions under section 471 IPC stand and the sentences (rigorous imprisonment for two years for the first-appellant as described in the text; simple imprisonment for one year for the second appellant, Chinta) are upheld.
On legal principles: The court applied existing authorities to (a) interpret "produced" and "use" in the context of s.471 and s.195(c) CrPC broadly (so that filing or instructing the filing of the document and taking advantage of it in a defence can constitute "use"), and (b) treat "fraudulently" and "dishonestly" as not limited to intentions of wrongful gain or loss. The opinion relied on prior cases for these propositions rather than declaring a novel principle of law.
The opinion therefore affirms the convictions on the particular facts and applies established precedents; it does not purport to create a new, broader precedent beyond the application of those authorities to the facts before the Court.

This summary is drawn exclusively from the text of the provided opinion and does not add or infer facts beyond those explicitly stated therein.

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Baju Jha And Another Accused v. Emperor .

1. The appellants, Baju and Chinta, were put upon their trial together with two others, Ramkrishna and Muktinath, (who were acquitted) before the Additional Sessions Judge of Bhagalpur on a charge under s. 471 of the Indian Penal Code with having fraudulently or dishonestly used as genuine a certain document knowing or having reason to believe at the time they used it that the said document had been forged. They were convicted and sentenced, the first appellant, Raju, to rigorous imprisonment for two years and the second appellant, Chinta, to simple imprisonment for one year.

2. In order to appreciate the circumstances it is necessary to consider the family of one Bhailal Jha who died some years ‘ago.

3. This man left six sons, (1) Bhagwan, (2) Tharu, (3) Mathuri, (4) Nityanand, (5) Panchu and (6) Manbharan. Of these the last three died without issue but Manbnaran left a widow. The eldest, Bhag-wan, left a son Chatur who is now dead. The second left a son Ajodhya who is living. The third Mathuri left three sons (a) Nachu, who died in 1915, (b) Baju, the first accused, and (c) Muktinath who was one of the accused acquitted. On January 5th, 1915, Nachu with Manbharan's widow executed a conveyance of certain land to Chatur. On the same day Chatur executed a mortgage-bond in favour of one Palat Singh of tne same land together with other plots. Palat subsequently obtained a mortgage-decree and purchased the mortgaged land and he got delivery of possession in 1920. On the 18th July 1924 Palat sold all his interest in this land to one Awadhlal Jha who is a mukhtar carrying on his practice at Madhipura.

4. On the 3rd April 1927, Awadhlal sent information to the Sub-Inspector of Police alleging that certain persons had removed the corps growing on the lands he had bought from Palat. Amongst these persons he charged Baju, Muktinath and Ramkrishna together with the appellant Chinta. They were all charged under ss. 379 and 143 with theft and rioting. Chinta is a person closely allied with the other accused but the part alleged against him in this prosecution was that he was in command of and ordering the party who raided Awadhlal's crops. At the trial Chinta was separately represented by a Pleader and the other accused were defended by a mukhtar named Shib Kumar Jha. The defence put forward on behalf of all the accused was that Baju and Muktinath were really in possession of the land which Awadhlal Jha alleged to have been raided and they alleged that the title of Awadhlal Jha derived through Chatur was bad. Ohinta raised the further defence that he had not taken part in the occurrence and had not issued the orders attributed to him. He was in fact ultimately acquitted on this ground, the Magistrate holding that it was unlikely that a man of his relatively advanced age could have played the part alleged by the prosecution. The other accused persons were Convicted, the Magistrate holding that their defence on the question of possession entirely failed.

5. In order to establish the defence on the question of possession the accused persons alleged that the conveyance of January tth, 1911, by Nachu and Manbharan's widow to Chatur was a merely farzi transaction and that the property which it purported to convey remained in the possession of Nachu and had since his death remained in the possession of Baju. To establish this allegation the mukhtar de-fenaing Baju put in evidence a deed dated the 27th April, 1915, by which Chatur executed a sale-deed in favour of the two daughters of one Bankey Jha. The execution of this deed has not been doubted and it recites the mortgage to Palat Singh and the necessity on the part of Chatur to pay off that mortgage and that the object of selling the land (or rather a portion of it for only a portion was sold) was to raise funds for this purpose. The consideration was Rs. 100. It appears that the deed was delivered to Bankey Jha, For various reasons, including the fact that he feared dispossession by the holders of earlier incumbrances, Bankey Jha with the consent of Chatur Jha decided to rescind the purchase on behalf of his daughters and returned the deed of sale to the vendor Chatur and on the back of the deed there is an endorsement reciting amongst other things the words of which the following is a translation:—

“Apprehending dispossession from the said land 1 return this deed of sale to the vendor Chatur Jha holding possession in the presence of the punches”.

6. This endorsement was witnessed by a number of persons including the appellant, Chinta Jha who signed with his own pen. Now the deed which was produced had the word “Chatur” altered to “Nachu”. There is no doubt whatever that the alteration has in fact been made and indeed both of the appellants admit that it was made and justify the alteration. Chinta has said that it was altered at the time of the execution of the endorsement and it is contended on behalf of the appellant Baju that it was deliberately so altered because the sale of January 5th, 1911, to Chatur being a -farzi transaction and it being intended that the property should really remain in the hands of the descendants of Mathuri the third son of Bhailal Jha. Chatur having taken surrender of the sale-deed of the 27th April, 1915, had been as a result of the decision of a pin-chayat compelled to recognise Nachu's position as the real proprietor and had acquiesced in the alteration of the endorsement and that the sale deed had in fact been surrendered to Nachu. If this contention had been true, there would have been some ground for stating that the whole of the dealing with the property by Chatur subsequent to the -farzi sale-deed of January 5th, 1911, was invalid and that the title of Awadhlal to possession of the property consequently failed. That being so, there could be no theft of the crops under s. 379 and no unlawful object to support the charge under s. 143. Needless to say this defence was quite unsound even if the endorsement with the name “Nachu” had in fact been proved as stated by the defence but such was their object.

7. In the trial before the Magistrate, however, the deed with its endorsement was put forward as a genuine document and the fact of the alteration having been made only came to light in the course of the proceedings before him and as a consequence he set on foot this prosecution, it has been contended before ma that the alteration was honest and that it was not made for the purposes of the case before the Magistrate but had been effected immediately after the execution of the endorsement in 1915. This story is, however, manifestly untrue. In 1916 there were proceedings under s. 141 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in which the muharir to the witness Awadhlal was the first parly and Mathuri Jha (who was then alive) and Baju Jha were the second party and it does not appear that the document was then produced by the second party before the Court as it certainly would have been if the alteration had been made before that date. Had it been so produced, it would now bear the seal of the Court before which the proceedings under s. 141 were tried. Moreover, no evidence was offered by the defence to support their story of the alteration. It would have been easy for them to have called evidence of the alleged decision of the pmchayat which was said to have decided that the deed of sale was in fact returned to Nachu instead of to Chatur. Moreover, P.W No. 3 to whom I shall presently refer stated in cross examination that he had asked Chinta about the alteration and that Chinta had stated that the writer of the endorsement made the alteration at the time he wrote it. This was said in the presence of the other appellants who endorsed the statement of Chinta, It would, therefore, have been possible, if Chinta's statement had been true, to call some of these witnesses to the endorsement to corroborate the story. Such witnesses, however, as were present when the endorsement was made do not support this story and, moreover, were not cross-examined with a view to establishing its truth. In my opinion it is perfectly clear that the alteration was made with a dishonest intention in order to affect the case before the Magistrate and that it is a forgery.

8. On behalf of the appellant Chinta two main points have been urged. Firstly, it is contended that whatever may be said against his co-appellant Baju Chinta was not the person who used the forged document in the proceedings before the Magistrate. He was separately represented by a Pleader and the document was produced and put in evidence by the mukhtar who defended the other accused. As to this point there are two answers. In the first place, there is the evidence of the mukhtar who conducted the defence of Baju and the other accused. He says that he got instructions from Chinta Jha in the presence of Baju and the other accused persons, that he filed the deed under the instructions of Chinta, that having noticed the alteration he asked Chinta about it and that Chinta had made the statement which I have mentioned above. There is the further point that Chinta took advantage together with the other accused of the defence based on the allegation that it was Baju who was in possession of the disputed land. It is true that he had another and independent defence but he certainly availed himself of this contention. To my mind this was a clear user of the document within the meaning of s. 471 of the Indian Penal Code.

9. It was, however, argued that user in a Court of Law must mean production of the document and the giving of it in evidence and reliance is placed upon s. 195(c) of the Code of Criminal Procedure which has the effect of rendering the procedure under that section inapplicable unles the forged document has been “produced or given in evidence”. It is said that this limits the procedure under s. 195(c) to a limited class of user within the wider class contemplated by s. 471 of the Indian Penal Code. This view, however, is in my opinion, unsound. The word “or” which intervenes between the word “produced” and the words “given in evidence” shows that it is disjunctive and that the procedure is applicable not only in cases where the document has been given in evidence but also in cases where it has been produced and the ambit of the word “produced” is very wide as was shown in the case of Gulabchand Rupji v. Emperor(1), where it was held that a document presented to the Court as a compromise but rejected on the ground that it was time-barred was nevertheless “produced” within the meaning of this clause of s. 195. It was also held in Emperor v. Bansi Sheikh(2) that a document is to be considered as produced if filed in support of a pleading even though not taken into account by the Court.

10. The last point consised in the argument that whereas according to s. 471 the user must be fraudulent or dishonest and inasmuch as s. 24 purports to define the word “dishonest” as limited to cases involving the intention of “causing wrongful gain to one person or wrongful loss to another person” and inasmuch as the word “fraudulent” should be read as synonymous or ejusdem generis with the word “dishonest” that s. 471 only contemplates user for the purpose of producing material gain or material loss to another and that it cannot apply to user for the purpose of securing an acquittal. In my opinion such a construction would have the effect of rendering the section inapplicable to any case where a forged document was relied on by the defence to prove that the criminal offence charged was not committed and it is quite unsound. Moreover, the case of Emperor v. Mohit Kumar Mukerjee(3) shows that the words “frauduiently and “dishonestly” have no such limited meaning Indeed this case distinctly decides that neither the acquisition nor the derprivation of property ie essential ingredient of the intent in an offence under s. 471 of-the Indian Penal Code. In my opinion, moreover, the obtaining of an acquittal is very distinctly the obtaining of an advantage and brings the case within the definition of “dishonestly” in s. 14. Moreover, s. 24 is not an exhaustive definition of the word “dishonestly. “The section does not say that the word “dishonestly” is applicable only when there is an intention of causing wrongful gain to one person or wrongful loss to, another person but properly construed means that cases of intention of causing such wrongful gain or loss are to be considered as coming within the wider class of dishonest actions. The appeals, therefore, fail and the sentences which, having regard to the offence and the frequency of its oocurrence, are not severe, must be maintained.

11. I desire to say that I am much indebted to the Advocates for their assistance in this case.

12. Appeal dismissed.

Baju Jha And Another Accused v. Emperor .

Structured Summary of the Opinion

Factual and Procedural Background

Legal Issues Presented

Arguments of the Parties

Appellants' Arguments

Prosecution / Court-facing Evidence and Contentions

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

Holding and Implications

Baju Jha And Another Accused v. Emperor .

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