Emperor Vs. Keshav Narayan Manolkar

indian evidence act (i of 1872), sections 10 and 32(3) - letter written by a person to a third party-evidence against accused-conspiracy not proved-statement made by a deceased co-accused at the trial-no evidence against co-accused.; on a trial for forgery, a letter written by a person who had no hand in the forgery to his brother, a stranger to the transaction, was produced. the writer of the letter was not examined; but the letter was allowed to go in under section 10 of the indian evidence act. further, one of the co-accused in the forgery had made a statement before the inquiring magistrate; but he died before the trial could commence the abatement was let in under sections 32(3) of the act. on appeal:-;(1) that the letter was not admissible under section 10 of the indian evidence act, in absence of evidence that its writer was a conspirator in the fabrication of the will;;(2) that the statement also was inadmissible under section 32(3) of the act, since its maker had already rendered himself liable to criminal prosecution at the time it was made. - .....a conspirator, because if he had been a conspirator at the time of the fabrication of the will he would presumably have been present or had some hand in the fabrication. but it is not alleged that he had a hand in the fabrication. his interests, as has already been pointed out, or his inclinations, were adverse to those of accused no. 1 from the commencement, and if he was a member of a conspiracy he can only have been a member of a conspiracy of silence and not a conspiracy for forgery. therefore, we are of opinion that these letters should not have been admitted under section 10 of the indian evidence act.2. the further document which was admitted was a statement made by sidhbhat, one of the alleged forgers, who was dead, and that was admitted by the learned judge under section 32, sub-section (3) on the ground that it was a statement which was made so much against his interest that it would have rendered him liable to criminal prosecution at the time it was made. but the answer to that is that the liability to the criminal prosecution had already been incurred. he had already been brought up under a non-bailable warrant for the offence which this statement is said to have been an admission of, and we do not think that section 32(3) can be extended and stretched in such a way as to admit a statement by an accused person after the charge has been preferred against him. [the remaining portion of the judgment is not material to this report.]