IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD PRESENT THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE K.C.BHANU C.R.P.NO.3229 OF 2010 Date:17.03.2011 Between:- Muddala Venkata Narasimha Rao ..Petitioner/defendant And Muddala Venkata Satyanarayana .. Respondent/plaintiff ORDER:- This Civil Revision Petition is directed against the order dated 02.07.2010 in I.A.No.530 of 2010 in O.S.No.11 of 2006 on the file of the Senior Civil Judge, Narsapur, whereunder and whereby, the petition filed under Section 45 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 for sending the suit pronote to Forensic Science Laboratory for ascertaining the age of the ink and the signatures on the pronote was dismissed. 2. The suit was filed for recovery of money basing on a pronote. The petitioner herein is the defendant, whereas respondent herein is the plaintiff in the suit. In the said suit, the present Interlocutory Application was filed, which was dismissed vide the impugned order. 3. Heard both sides. 4. Learned counsel for the petitioner relied upon a decision reported in Uppu Jhansi Lakshmi Bai vs. J.Venkateswara Rao[1], wherein it is held thus: I am not inclined to agree with the submissions of the learned counsel. The opinion of an expert is relevant under Section 45 of the Indian Evidence Act. It is an accepted principle of law that the science of handwriting is not an accurate one and there is likelihood of errors creeping in, when a handwriting expert gives his evidence and therefore, such evidence should be received with caution. What is the evidentiary value of a handwriting expert and whether or not in conjunction with the other evidence available, the evidence of the expert supports the case of the plaintiff, are matters for decision by the trial judge. The passage from the decision of the Supreme Court extracted supra is not an authority for the proposition that the evidence of the handwriting expert should not be brought on record for the purpose of determining the age of the disputed hand-writing. The opinion of 'Albert S. Osborn', quoted with approval by the Supreme Court, was expressed by the learned author in the following context: "There are those also who pretend to say how old a writing is by merely examining it with a hand magnifier or a microscope. This always is an exhibition either of ignorance or of dishonest presumption. The chemical tests to determine age also, as a rule, are a mere excuse to make a guess and furnish no reliable data upon which a definite opinion can be based as can easily be demonstrated by fair tests on documents of known age." The learned author also expressed the view that: ".....By recording the color as first seen, any observer with good eyesight can on second view answer the question whether an ink is still undergoing a change in color. This kind of an ink examination often furnishes conclusive evidence that a document is not as old as it purports to be. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . It is important to know that the color of the ink on a suspected document, if it is promptly examined, may thus be the means of showing that the document is not genuine. If a writing of this kind purports to have been written long before and it can be shown that the ink has not yet reached its final depth of color, and it actually goes through those changes that are characteristic of ink during the first months or year of its history, it is only necessary to prove this fact to invalidate the document." 5. On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondent placed reliance on a decision reported in Union of India v. Jyoti Prakash[2], wherein it is held thus: “After consultations between the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Law, the Home Ministry sent certain old writings of the year 1904, 1949, 1950 and 1959 and requested the Director to determine the age of the writing of the disputed horoscope and marginal note in the almanac by comparison. The Director on April 17, 1965 wrote that it ‘was possible to give any definite opinion by such comparisons particularly when the comparison writings were not made with the same ink on similar paper and not stored under the same conditions as the documents under examination’, and that it “will not be possible for a document expert, however reputed he might be, anywhere in the world, to give any definite opinion on the probable date of the horoscope and the ink writing in the margin of the almanac.” 6. In view of the above decision, it is clear that it will not be possible for a document expert, however reputed he may be, to give any definite opinion on the probable date of the ink writing. The science of hand writing is not an accurate one and there is likelihood of errors creeping in, when a hand writing expert gives his evidence and therefore, such evidence should be received with caution. What is the evidentiary value of a hand writing expert and whether or not in conjunction with the other evidence available, the evidence of the expert supports the case of the plaintiff, are matters for decision by the trial Court. In the factual background of the case, appropriate decision has to be taken whether a document has to be sent to an expert or not for the purposes of ascertaining the age of the ink in the promissory note. Plea of defendant is that more than 15 years back, he borrowed a sum of Rs.5,000/- from M.V.Suryanarayana and plaintiff obtaining the signature on number of blank promotes. The suit promissory note is one of the blank promissory notes obtained by M.V.Suryanarayana. It is further stated by defendant that he did not sign on promissory note in the year 2003. In the written statement, a specific plea of forgery had taken. If such is the case, there is absolutely no reason to send the document to an expert for ascertaining the age of the ink. Therefore, the question of sending the document to the expert does not arise and the trial Court rightly dismissed the application. The impugned order needs no interference by this Court. 7. The Civil Revision Petition is dismissed. However, the trial Court shall dispose of the case in accordance with law uninfluenced by any of the observations made by this Court in this C.R.P. There shall be no order as to costs. _​_____________________ JUSTICE K.C.BHANU 17th March, 2011 AMD THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE K.C.BHANU C.R.P.NO.3229 OF 2010 Date:17.03.2011 AMD [1] AIR 1994 AP 90 [2] AIR 1971 SC 1093