M. N. Phadke and M. N. Shroff for respondent.The prosecution case against the appellant-accused maybriefly be stated thus : There is a Rosary Co-operativeHousing Society Ltd. in a suburb of Bombay, It owns abuilding having 48 flats of which 23 flats belong to thewell-known Tata concerns.Sir Dorabji Tata Trust holds 3flats out of these 23 flats.It appears that in view of thelarge number of flats held by the Tatas they wanted to havea representation on the managing committee of the societyand participate in its affairs.One R. D. Doongaji (PW1)was the General Secretary of Sir Dorabji Tata Trust apartfrom his, being a Legal Adviser to Tatas in their ShareDepartment; on and from November 6, 1964, he after beingelected, was working as a Chairman of the Managing Committeeof the Society.One K. N. Singh, Advocate (PW12) wasworking as the figure-head Secretary of the Society.TheSociety had a Bank account with Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank Ltd., which was operated jointly by Doongaji(PWI) and K. N. Singh (P.W. 12).One B. A. Sagar (PW2) wasworking as the Estate Manager of the Society from April 1,1967 and he retired due to old age with effect from December31, 1969, where after one Mathew Figrado (PW7) worked asEstate Manager.As Estate Manager, Sagar's duties were tocollect the monthly compensation at the rate of Rs. 100/-from each flat-bolder of the Society, to look after themaintenance of the-said building, to undertake-the repairsafter obtaining the oral sanction of the managing committeeand incur expenditure therefor either from the collection ofcompensation or from his own pocket, to draw his own salaryand the salary of the staff of the Society from suchcollections, and to hand over the balance to the HonoraryAccountant of the Society together with a statement 'ofaccount and vouchers, in respect of sundry expensesincurred.However, he was not allowed to spend more thanRs. 100/- at a time for carrying out the repairs to thebuilding.The appellant-accused,- who was working asAccounts Clerk in Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, was appointed byDoongaji (PWI) as an Honorary Accountant of the Society inMay 1966 and he worked in that capacity for the Society tillJuly 1, 1970 when his services were dispensed with.As anHonorary Accountant of the Society his duties inter aliawere to write and maintain the books of accounts (Cash-Book,ledger, journal and the voucher file), to receive amounts ofcompensation collected by the Estate Manager from themembers ,of the Society, to reimburse the Estate Manager bycheques for sundry expenses which the latter may haveincurred, to pay the municipal4 8 2taxes and to make other payments of bills again by chequesonly and that too after verifying from the minute book thatsuch payments had been sanctioned by the managing committeeof the Society and also to make payments by cheques onlyagainst the vouchers after satisfying himself about thegenuineness of the vouchers.According to the prosecutionin the month of December 1969 a proprietary firm M/s A. G.R. Patni & Co. had carried out a small job of clearing achoked pipe line of the storage tank of the Society and hadsubmitted its bill No. 49 dated December 14, 1969 for Rs.7.50 (Exh. 5 Colly.).It was received by Sagar (PW2) and wasordinarily required to be paid by him but it appears thatsince he was retiring at the end of December, 1969, he didnot disburse the amount to Patni but handed it over to theappellant-accused.According to the prosecution this bill(Ext.5 Colly.), when it was originally received and washanded over by Sagar (PW2) to the appellant-accused was, forRs.7.50, the identical amount being mentioned both infigures and words, but some time later it was interpolatedby adding the, figure of "160" before the figure "7"inflating the amount to Rs. 1607.50 in figures withoutaltering the amount in words; in other words, as altered thebill showed the amount as Rs. 1607.50 in figures but rupeesseven and fifty paise only in words.Further, according tothe prosecution, another document purporting to be a typedunstamped voucher-cum-receipt dated 3-4-1970 for Rs. 1607.50(Ext.5 colly.) connected with and related to aforesaidinterpolated and inflated bill purporting to bear thesignature of B. A. Sagar, Estate Manager (PW2) and theinitials of R. D. Doongaji, the Chairman of the ManagingCommittee (P.W.1), came into existence.The prosecution wasunable to say who had actually interpolated and inflated thebill No. 49 (Ext. 5 colly.) as also who had brought intoexistence the aforesaid voucher/.receipt (Ex. 5 colly.) onwhich forged signature of Sagar and forged initials ofDoongaji appeared.But the prosecution case was that theappellant accused fraudulently or dishonestly used asgenuine the said bin and the said typed voucher/receiptknowing or having reason to believe that these documentswere forged for the purpose of issuing a bearer cheque forthe said inflated amount and misappropriating the same.Theprosecution story was that for the sake of convenience andfacility of work a practice was followed in the Society thatat a 1 time about 8 to 10 blank cheques used to be signed byDoongaji (PW1) first and then by K. N. Singh (PW12) and thecheque-book containing such signed blank cheques used toremain in the custody of the appellant-accused and wheneverpayment was required to be made by cheque the appellantaccused used to write the body of the cheque in his own handand make the by issuing the same; that asregards bill No. 49 of Patni & Co appellant-accused in hiscapacity as Honorary Accountant on the basis of inflatedbill as well as the forged voucher/receipt (Ex. 5 colly.)made use of one of such blank cheques signed by Doongaji andSingh by issuing a bearer cheque No. 377137 dated 3-4-1970for Rs. 1607.50 in favour of Shivram A Lad (PW8), Peon inDorabji Tata Trust; that Lad withdrew the amount from theSociety's Bank at the instance of the appellant-accused andhanded it over to him, which the appellant-'4 83accused dishonestly misappropriated.Thus, according to the prosecution, the appellant-accused on or about April 3, 1970 dishonestly used asgenuine two forged documents, namely, the bill No. 49 datedDecember 14, 1969 as well as the voucher/receipt dated April3, 1970, knowing or having reason to believe them to beforged at the time of such user that he committed criminalbreach of trust in respect of the sum of Rs. 1607.50andalso falsified the books of accounts of the Society.Itappearsthat in the last week of June 1970, Sagar (PW2)the retired Estate Manager, complained to Doongaji (PW 1)that certain amountswhich had been paid by him to theappellant-accused were not to be found in the books ofaccounts of the Society maintained by the appellant-accused,whereupon Doongaji took Sagar to Professor Choksi, themanaging trustee of Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and in July orAugust, 1970 Karsi Gherda (PW11).Appeal by Special Leave from the Judgment and Order datedthe 30th September, 1974 of the Bombay High Court in Crl.A. No. 176 of 1974,J.P. Mehta, B. R. Aggarwala and P. B. Aggarwala for theAppellant.Controller of Accounts inTata Electric Company was requested to look into theaccounts of the Society.The crime was registered by_the Palton Road Police Station and subsequently theinvestigation was taken over by the Crime Branch C.I.D. andafter completion of the investigation the appellant-accusedwas charge-sheeted and then committed to the, Court ofSessions to stand his trial for offences under s. 471 readwith s. 468 (two counts) one in respect of each of the twodocuments, the bill and the voucher/receipt, s. 408 and s.477A. I.P.C.The appellant-accused abjured-guilt and denied havingcommitted any of the offences with which he was charged.Hedisputed that there was any practice to keep in his custodythe cheque-book of the society containing the blank chequessigned by Doongaji (PWI) and K. N. Singh (PWI2) as suggestedby the prosecution or that he bad made use of any suchsigned blank cheque by issuing the bearer cheque No. 377137on April 3,1970 for Rs. 1607.50 for the purpose ofmisappropriating the amount as alleged.According to himthe amount of Rs. 1607.50 was paid in cash by him to Sagar(PW2) on the instructions from Doongaji (PWI) but at thattime he had told Doongaji that a large amount was due bySagar to the society and if at all the payment was to bemade to him it should be adjusted against the amount due tothe Society from him.but Doongaji did not accept hissuggestion but insisted that the amount should be paid toSagar without any adjustment.The appellant-accused deniedthat the bill of Patni & Co. was handed over to him by Sagarat any time or at about the time when the payment was madeto him at the484instance of Doongaji but what was banded over to him was abill- cum-receipt of M/s Patni & Co. written in Gujaraticontaining the rubber stamp of M/s. Patni & Co., on thestrength of which the payment was vouched but thisGujarati writing was not forthcoming.Even though he hadmade cash payment of Rs. 1607.50 to Sagar underinstructions of Doongaji, he wanted an entry of this amountin the Bank column of the Cash-Book of the society and thishe did by way of precaution since according to him atthat time a large amount was due to be paid by Sagar tothe Society.Accordingly, he filled in the body of thecheque and in the presence of Doongaji on the top of thecounter-foil of the cheque he made an endorsement "underverbal order of R.D.D." He wrote down the name of Lad, aPeon of J. N. Tata in the body of the cheque.TheMaharashtra State Co-operative Bank was not permittingthe bearer cheque to be cashed unless the Chairman and theSecretary of the Society gave their signatures on thereverse of the cheques and since it was difficult to obtainthe signatures of the Secretary Singh, he wrote the name ofLad as the payee of the cheque while on the counter-foil hementioned the name of A.G.R. Patni and Co. because thepayment of Rs. 1607.50 had been made towards thesatisfaction of the bill for that amount to Patni & Co.by Sagar.His case further was that after Lad cashed thecheque, Lad gave the amount to him which be kept in thecash-box; in other words, his defence was that from outof the cash-box he made cash payment of Rs. 1607.50 to Sagaron the insistence of Doongaji and then replenished the cash-box after encashment of the cheque through Lad.Hefurther emphatically disputed that he had used theforged bill and forged voucher/,receipt in connectionwith the payment of Rs. 1607.50 which he made, to Sagar atthe instance of Doongaji.He also denied that he hadmisappropriated the amount or had falsified the cash-book asalleged and the case of the prosecution being entirelyfalse he deserved to be acquitted.At the trial the prosecution led oral as well as documentaryevidence in support of its case.The oral evidence consistedof as many as 15 witnesses out of whom 7 witnesses werematerial, namely, Doongaji (PW1), Sagar (PW2), Abdul GaniPatni (PW3), Shivram Lad (PW8), Nariman Deboo (PW6),Kars Gherda (PWll) and K. N. Singh (PW12).One Nand Kumar Parekh, an Hand-writingExpert and the State Examiner of Documents in the StateC.I.D. was examined who gave his expert opinion that thepurported signature "B. A. Sagar" and the purportedinitial "RDD" appearing on the485voucher-cum-receipt dated April 3, 1970 (Ext. 5 colly.) werenot in the hand of witnesses Sagar and Doongaji respectivelybut were traced forgeries and gave reasons for his saidopinion of course, this was in addition to the positiveevidence of these two witnesses who had stated that theconcerned 'signature and the concerned initial were nottheir's.The learned Session Judge on a consideration ofthe evidence on record came to the conclusion that theprosecution had failed to establish any of the chargesagainst the appellant-accused beyond reasonable doubt.Hedid not accept the prosecution case that signed blankcheques 8 or 10 at a time used to be kept with theappellant-accused and did not accept the evidence of eitherDoongaji (PW1) or K. N. Singh (PW12) in that behalf, foraccording to him, the reasons for resorting to such practicewere not satisfactory.He also took the view that it wasnot possible to accept the prosecution case that theappellant-accused was in possession of the original bill No.49 dated December 14, 1969 of Patni & Co. and he felt thatdefence version bad been rendered probable that theappellant-accused must have made the payment of Rs. 1607.50to Sagar at the instance of Doongaji especially as on thecounter-foil of the concerned bearer cheque No. 377137 datedApril 3, 1970 there was an endorsement made by 'theappellant-accused "under verbal order of RDD"; in otherwords, he was inclined to accept the defence case that theappellant-accused had first paid out cash of Rs. 1607.50 toSagar from out of the cash-box and thereafter replenishedthe cash-box by issuing the bearer cheque and getting itencashed through peon Shivram Lad.Against this acquittal order passedby learned Addl.Inappeal the High Court reversed the acquittal recorded infavour of the accused by the learned Addl.The High Court rejected the defence version thatthe appellant-accused had first paid cash out of the cashboxto Sagar as suggested by him or that be bad done so at the486instance of Doongaji or that he had issued the bearer chequeunder verbal order of Doongaji as suggested.It found thatthe Society had not got so much cash with it on or aboutApril 3, 1970, that the cash balance on hand with theSociety for quite some time prior to April 3, 1970 was onlyRs.505.07p; that Sagar's evidence that he had not gone tothe office in the month of April, 1970 after his retirermentwas acceptable and, therefore, the accused's version that hehad first paid cash to Sagar and had replenished cash byissuing and encashing the bearer cheque was utterly falseand he had dishonestly misappropriated the amount.Holdingthat the prosecution had established its case against theappellant-accused beyond doubt, the High Court convicted himof all the charges levelled against him.However, on thequestion of sentence, for certain reasons mentioned by it inits judgment, the High Court sentenced him to one day'simprisonment and a fine of Rs. 2000/- and in default tosuffer rigorous imprisonment for six months.It was also not disputed that the said bill when itwas submitted by Abdul Gani Patni (PW3) and when it wasreceived by Sagar (PW2) the amount thereof both in figuresand words was Rs. 7.50 and it was some time later that thisbill No. 49 got interpolated and become inflated to Rs.1607.50 by addition of the figure "160" before the figure"7" but such interpolation only appeared in the amountexpressed in figures while the amount expressed in wordscontinued to be "rupees, seven and fifty paise only.".it istrue that the prosecution has not been able to show as tohow and who made such interpolation in this bill but itcannot be disputed that anyone who would come across suchbill (being Part of Ex. 5 colly) would immediately noticethe interpolation and discrepancy therein, so that whoeveruses the bill at any time subsequent to its tampering wouldhave knowledge and reason to believe that the same has beenforged.In other wordsthe.Dealing first with the prosecution theory that blank chequessigned by Doongaji and Singh used to remain in the custodyof the accused there is evidence of two prosecutionwitnesses on the point, namely, Doongaji (PW1), and Singh(PW12); Doongaji (PW1) has stated that the bank accountcould be operated jointly by himself asthe Chairman andSingh as the Secretary, that Singh used to resideatGoregaon and every time whenever the cheque was required tobe drawn it was not possible for Singh to give hissignature onthe same and further that Singh used toinsist that before he wouldput his signature on thecheque of the society, the Chairman shouldput hissignature on the same and, therefore, with a view tofacilitatethe convenience of Singh, it was thepractice of the society that at atime about 8 to 10blank cheques used to be signed by him first andthey weresent to Singh through witness Sagar the Estate Manager, andSingh used to put his signatures thereon, and the chequebook containing such signed blank cheques always used toremain in the custody of the accused and on every occasionthe particulars of the cheque both in words as well as infigures used to be written by the appellant-accused.Doongaji also stated that the books of account, the vouchersand cheque book used to be kept in the custody of theaccused in the office of Sir Doongaji Tata Trust.To thesame effect was the evidence of Singh (PWI2), who confirmedthat he used to put his signatures on blank cheques wheneverthey were signed by the Chairman 'of the Society and be usedto receive such blank cheques duly signed by the Chairman ofthe Society first through Sagar and later through Sagar'ssuccessor Figrado and that at a time he used to sign blankcheques between 5 to 10 in number and sometimes they used tobe 15 also.This evidence was sought to be demolished bythe defence by relying upon two or three factors.The learned Addl.Sessions Judge has, infact, made a half-hearted finding on this part of theprosecution case by observing as follows in para 36 of thejudgment "The probabilities would rather show that the chequebook containing the blank cheques signed by Mr. Doongaji as well as by Mr. Singh would continue to remain with Mr. Doongaji and as and when an occasion arose for issuing a cheque the accused would be summoned and he would be asked to fill in the body of the cheque and then the cheque would be issued."The observation suggests that the learned trial Judge hasaccepted the prosecution case partly, namely that onprobabilities the cheque-book used to contain blank chequessigned by Doongaji as well as by Mr. Singh but according tohim such cheque-book containing signed blank cheque wouldcontinue to remain with Doongaji.We fail to appreciate asto why, if at all, the cheque-book was to remain withDoongaji and the cheques would be issued by the accused inthe manner suggested by him, blank cheques would be signedby Doongaji at all.The evidence of the two witnesses asalso the contents of the letter Ext. 59-D clearly show thatthe practice as put forward by the prosecution did obtain inthe society.Apart from the aforesaid oral evidence of thetwo witnesses and the support it receives from the contentsof the letter Ext. 59-D, there is yet one circumstance whichsupports the prosecution story on the question of aforesaidpractice and that circumstance arises from the defence,version itself.(1) that it was the last month of hisservice and (2) that be did not have sufficient funds withhim and according to the defence both the reasons do notbear scrutiny and if the reasons for not disbursing the,bill are false his evidence, that he handed over the billto the appellant,accused cannot and should not be accepted.It has been elicited in his evidence that he used to keepwith him cash of the, Society out of the collections made byhim for days and months and in any case it would bedifficult to believe that be did not have a paltry sum ofRs. 7.50/- with him and it has been further elicited thatthough it was the last month of his service he had madecollection from the occupants of the flats.It was thusurged that both the reasons put forward by the witness fornot disbursing the bill being false his evidence should beit ejected.Manager,from time to time.Karsi Gherda afterhehad been apprised by Nariman Deboo about the existence ofthesetwo documents (Ext. 5 collectively) which were fictitiousand fraudulent in character.' had a meeting of the personsconcerned and had confronted the appellant-accused withthese two documents.particularly, the bill part of Ext. P5and from what the accused stated at that time to the witnessit would be clear that the appellant-accused was fullyconscious and aware of the clear inter-1,therefore sent for the accused.When I showed this billpart of Ext. 5 collectively and asked him as to what hewanted to say with regard to the clear interpolation in thefigure of Rs. 1607.50 the accused agreed with me and told methat even if it was clear case of interpolation, he paid off the amount under the authority of Doongaji, who wasChairman of the Managing Committee of the Society".Nothingwas elicited in /his cross-"amination so as to cast anydoubt on this part of the evidence given by him in examina-tion-in-Chief.We might, however, state that for the firsttime in the appeal when it was being heard by the, HighCourt an application was made seeking permission to recallthe witness for the purpose of contradicting him with hispolice statement where, according to the appellant-accused,the witness had not given his version as to what transpiredbetween him and the accused during the meeting in suchdetails but that application was rejected by the High Courtand, in our view, rightly.The aforesaid evidence ofwitness Karsi Gherda, therefore, clearly brings out theaspect that on his own admission the appellant-accused hadmade the payment of the bill on the strength of the billwith full consciousness and awareness that the same was aninterpolated and forged document.from the fact thatin his statement under s. 342 Cr.P.C., the accused has comeout with a story that at about the time when he made paymentin cash to Sagar through Doongaji and issued the bearercheque and got it encashed for replenishing of the cash,some Gujarati voucher byway of a receipt from Patni & Co,had been produced to him but somehow or the other thatGujarati voucher was not forth coming.In other words, thatthe disbursement of the bill would require to be vouched bya voucher-cum-receipt was very well known to the appellant-accused.The Gujarati writing, it seems to us, is not forthcoming because there was no such Gujarati writing at all inexistence and the appellant accused purported to make thedisbursement of the forged bill on the basis of getting thesame vouched by means of the forged voucher-cum-receipt,(being the other part of Ext. 5 collectively.) In our view,therefore, on the aforesaid material which we have discussedabove it appears to us clear that the prosecution could besaid to have established its charge under S. 471 read withs.467 I.P.C. under both the counts against the accusedbeyond any reasonable doubt and the High Court was justifiedin reversing the acquittal recorded by the trial Court inhis favour on these counts.

Cited provisions: Section 471 in The Indian Penal Code; Section 467 in The Indian Penal Code; Section 468 in The Indian Penal Code