Judgment:
Oral Judgment:
1. Heard rival submissions at length on this criminal appeal preferred by the appellant/State challenging the judgment and order of acquittal dated 15/12/2010 passed by JMFC, Mapusa in Criminal Case No.271/S/2002/F.
2. By the impugned judgment and order, the present respondent/accused was acquitted for the offence punishable under Sections 468 and 471 of Indian Penal Code.
3. Prior to discussing the rival submissions, the provisions of Section 468 and 471 are required to be looked into in order to ascertain as to whether the prosecution has established the ingredients of the said provisions and whether in the limited scope available to this Court in appeal against acquittal, any interference is warranted. Said Sections 468 and 471 read thus:
468. Forgery for purpose of cheatingâ
Whoever commits forgery, intending that the 1[document or electronic record forged] shall be used for the purpose of cheating, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine.
471. Using as genuine a forged 3[document or electronic record]â Whoever fraudulently or dishonestly uses as genuine any 3[document or electronic record] which he knows or has reason to believe to be a forged 3[document or electronic record], shall be punished in the same manner as if he had forged such 3[document or electronic record].
4. Again prior to discussing the rival arguments, the case of the complainant i.e. PW1 on the basis of which the FIR was lodged is narrated in short. According to the complainant, sometime during May, 2001 and June, 2001, the present respondent/original accused trespassed the house of the complainant and thereby dispossessed the complainant and his wife i.e. PW1 and PW2 from the said house property. Second allegation against the respondent/accused is that he had forged the signature of the wife of the complainant and prepared a fabricated sale deed by which effect is created that the said house property along with the land beneath was sold by the wife of the complainant to the respondent/accused. It is also the factual position that prior to lodging the complaint with the police on 5/09/2010, the Civil Suit was filed for declaration and injunction by the original complainant against the present respondent and also his mother. The suit was filed on 2/07/2001 and admittedly, the said suit has been dismissed. On the said suit, the present respondent had taken shelter of the sale deed. This is the sale deed which according to the complainant is forged document and, as such, knowing this though in June, 2001, he lodged complaint in September, 2001.
5. With this factual position in short mentioned as above, it is to be ascertained whether the trial Court had erred in appreciating the material produced before it by way of examination of 10 prosecution witnesses. The important prosecution witnesses are PW1 complainant himself, PW2 his wife and PW5 handwriting expert. So far as PW2 wife is concerned she denied her signature on the sale deed which was used by the present respondent/accused in the civil suit. According to her, she had not sold the land and the house property to the respondent, who is admittedly her real brother. During her cross-examination she had categorically answered that the initial land on which the house was built subsequently, was purchased in her name in the year 1991. However, that time she had no any independent source of income. She denied having signed any sale deed as alleged which is dated 4/06/2001 and, as such, according to her it was a fabricated document and on the strength of which she and her husband were dispossessed from the property. At this juncture, it must be mentioned that the civil suit filed by the complainant was dismissed and apparently no appeal is preferred and said dismissal had attained finality.
6. This Court has gone through the reasoning given by the trial Court discussing the substantive evidence of PW1, PW2 and PW5. The trial Court had come to the conclusion that for want of the specimen handwriting of the respondent/accused, the prosecution failed to establish that the respondent/accused was the author of the forged document. In the opinion of this Court, this is rightly so held, thus resulting in failure on the part of the prosecution to establish offence punishable under Section 468 of Indian Penal Code.
7. So far as another offence punishable under Section 471 is concerned as to use of a forged document, firstly it is required to be established that the document is a forged one. On this aspect, again the reasoning given by the trial Court is gone into. The trial Court had also discussed the substantive evidence of PW5 i.e. handwriting expert by which said PW5 had stated that the signature appearing on sale deed and purported to be that of PW2 were not matching with the admitted handwriting and signature of PW2. Further discussing the evidence of this expert witness, the trial Court had opined that this expert evidence is required to be corroborated by some other material on record and in doing so, the Court came to the conclusion that the substantive evidence of PW1 and PW2 is not supporting each other on the aspect as to in what manner the complainant and said PW2 were dispossessed from the house property. It appears that what weighed with the trial Court was answers given by PW2 during the cross-examination that she had accepted the stay of her mother, sisters and also of the respondent, her brother in the said house for many years and also accepted that during the year 1991 or there about she had no source of income. Apparently, the landed property was purchased in her name during those years. In the opinion of this Court, while dealing with the appeal against acquittal if the view accepted by the trial Court is also the possible view, then the appellate Court may not interfere with the judgment and order of acquittal unless the order is of such a pervert and absurd nature so as to undo the same.
8. In view of the above, in the opinion of this Court, there is nothing to interfere with the impugned judgment and order in the present appeal preferred by the State and the same is accordingly dismissed and disposed off.