HANUMANT v. THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH
Citation: [1952] 1 S.C.R. 1091; 1952 INSC 41
Court: Supreme Court of India
Bench: MEHR CHAND MAHAJAN , NATWARLAL HARILAL BHAGWATI
Judgment date:
Case summary
1952 INSC 41. Supreme Court of India judgment dated 1952-09-23. HANUMANT v. THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH. Read the judgment and case details on LawSphereX.
Judgment text
S. C. R. SUPREME COURT REPORTS 1091 HANUMANT v THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH. RAOJIBHAI ti, THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH. [MEHR CHAND MAHAJAN, DAS and BHAGWATI JJ. ] Criminal trial-Circumstantial evidence-Sufficiency of evidence for conviction-Caution against basing conviction on guess or suspicion-Admission-Must be taken as a whole. In dealing with circumstantial evidenee there is always the danger that conjecture or suspicion may take the place of legal proof. It is therefore right to remember that in cases where the evidence is of a circumstantal nature, the circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should in the first instance be fully established and all the facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused. Again, the circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency, and they should be such as to exclude every hypothesis but the one proposed to be proved.
In other words; there must be a chain of evidence so far complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for a conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and it must be such as to show that within all human probability the act must have been done by the accused. Reg. v. Hodge [(1838) 2 Lew. 227] referred to. An admission made by a person whether amounting to a confession or not cannot be split up and part of it used against him. It must be used either as a whole or not at all. CRIMINAL APPELLATE JuRISDicTION Criminal Appeal No. 56 of 1951. Appeals by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated the 9th March, 1950, of the High Court of Judicature at Nagpur (C. R. Hemeon J. ) in Criminal Revisions Nos. 152 and 153 of 1949 arising out of Judgment and Order dated the 24th March, 1949, of the Court of the Sessions: Judge, Nagpur, in Criminal Appeals Nos.
26 and 27 of 1949 and Judgment and Order dated the 15th January, 1949, of the Court of the Special Magistrate, Nagpur, in Criminal Case No. 1 of 1948. 15-1 O S. C. India 71 1092 Sl]PRE! vfE COURT REPORTS [19? 2] N. C. Chatterjee (B. Bannerjee and A. K. Datt, with him) for the appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 56 of 1951. Bakshi Tek Chand (K. V. Tambay, with him) for the appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 57 of 1951. T. L. Shiv de, Advocate-General of Madhya Pradesh (T. P. Naik; with him) for the respondent. 1952. Sept. 23. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by MAHAJAN J. -This 1s a consolidated appeal by special kave from the two orders of the High Court of Judicature at Nagpur passed on the 9th March, 1950, 'in Criminal Revisions Nos. 152 and 153 of 1949. , On a complaint filed by the Assistant Inspector- General of Police, Anti-Corruption Department, Nagpur, the appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 56 of 1951 . (H. G.
Nargundkar, Excise Commissioner, Madhya Pradesh), and tne appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 57 of 1951 (R. S. Patel) were tried in the court of _Shri B. K. Chaudhri, Special Magistrate, Nagpur, for the offence of conspiracy to secure the contract of Seoni Distillery from April, 1947, to March 1951 by forging the tender, Exhibit P-3A, and for commission of the offences of forgery of the tender (Exhibit P-3A) and of another document, Exhibit P-24. The learned-Special Magistrate convicted both the appellants on all the three charges. He sentenced R. S. Patel to rigorous imprisonment for one year under each charge and to pay fines of Rs. 2,000, Rs. 2,000, and Rs. 1,000, under the first, second and third charges respectively. The appellant Nargundkar was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for six months under each charge and to pay fines of Rs. 2,000, Rs. 2,000 and Rs. 1,000, under the first, second and third charges respectively.
Each of the appellants appealed against their respective convictions and sentences to _the Court of the Sessions Judge, Nagpur. The learned . Sessions Judge quashed the conviction of both the appellants under the first charge of criminal conspiracy under section 120-B, I. P. C. , but maintained ~he conv1ct1ons and sentences under section 465, I. P. C. , on the charges of forging Exhibits P-3 (A) and P-24. Both the appellants went up in revision against this deci-sion to the H'. 1gh Court but without any success. An application was then made under article 136 of the Constitution of India for special leave to appeal and this was allowed by this Court on 24th March, 1950. The appellant, Nargundkar, 1s a member of the Central Provinces & Berar Provincial Service and held the substantive post of Deputy Commissioner for several years. In April, 1946, he was appointed Excise Commissioner, Madhya Pradesh, and continued to hold that office till tl. ie 5th September, 1947. The appellant, R. S.
Patel, is a sugar Technologist and Chemical Engineer. He received his technical education and practical trainirtg in America and after working as Chief Chemist and General Manager in factories in Madras for five years, came to the Central Provinces m 1944, when the Provincial Government gave him a licence to set up a distillery for the manu-facture of industrial spirit. On the 11th September, 1946, Nargundkar m his capacity as Excise Commissioner invited tenders for working the Government distillery at Seoni and sup-plying spirit to certain specified districts for a period of four years from 1st April, 1947, to 31st March, 1951. The last date for submitting the tenders was the 31st October, 1946. In response to this tender notice, five tenders were filed including those filed by ( 1) appellant, R. $. Patel, (2) K. B. Habibur Rahman, (3) Zakirur Rahman, and (4) Edulji P. Doongaji (P. W.
4), in sealed covers with the Excise Commissioner on the 31st October, 1946, and he handed them over with the seals intact to the office superintendent, S. W. Gadgil (P. W. 13), for safe custody. Gadgil took them to his room and kept them under lock and key in the office safe. The case for the prosecution 1s that on the gth November, 1946, accused Nargundkar took these sealed tenders home, that the tenders were opened b-y him at his house, that the rates of the tender (Exhibit P-6) of E. J. Doongaji (P. W. 4) were divulged to accused 2 (R. S. Patel), who was allowed to substitute another tender (Exhibit P-3A), containing rates lower than those of Doongaji, that thereafter these open tenders were brought to the office on the 11th November, 1946, and given to Amarnath (P. W. 20) who was the Assistant Commissioner of Excise, for submitting a report and that on the recommendation of Nargundkar the tender of accused 2 (Patel) was accepted and the contract was given to him.
In May, 1947, on receipt of. an application (Exhibit P-1) from one Dilbagrai (P. W. 14), enquiries were started by the Anti-Corruption Department. Both the accused became aware of the enqmry. In order to create evidence in their favour they brought into existence a letter (Exhibit P-24) and antedated it to 20th November, 1946. This document was forged with the intention of committing fraud and of causing injury to, Amarnath (P. W. 20) and also to Doongaji (P. W. 4). Exhibit P-24 is alleged to have been typed on a typewriter (Article A) which was purchased on •• the 30th December, 1946, by the National Industrial Alcohol Co. , Nagpur, of which accused Patel was the managmg director. It was further alleged that the endorsement made by accused 1 (Nargundkar) in the said letter "No action seems necessary. File'', and marked to Superintendent "S" was not made on the 21st November, 1946, which date it bears. This letter was handed over by accused 1 to the Office Superintendent, S. W.
Gadgil (P. W. 13) about the middle of August, 1947, and thereafter accused 1 wrote a letter (Exhibit P. 26), on the 2nd October, 1947, to Sri ' S. Sanyal (P. W. 19) who was then the Excise Com-mi5. 'ioner, requesting that this letter (Exhibit P-24) and a note sheet (Exhibit P-27) be kept in safe custody. Both the accused denied the commission of the offences of criminal conspuacy, forgery and abet- / ment thereof. Nargundkar denied having attended office on the 9th November, 1946. He denied having taken the tenders home. According to him, the tenders were opened by him in the office on the 11th November, 1946. Accused 2 denied that the ). tender of Doongaji was shown to him by accused 1 between the 9th and 11th November, 1946. He stated that the tender (Exhibit P-3A) was the original t tender submitted by him on the 31st October, 1946. As regards Exhibit P-24, it was denied that it was fabricated or antedated. Accused 2 stated that it was not typed on article A.
He also alleged that the allega-t tions made in exrubit P-24 were correct. Accused ' Nargundkar stated that the endorsement was made by him on the 21st November, 1946. The first charge .. having failed, nothing need be said about it herein. In order to prove the second charge the prosecution had to establish that Gadgil, P. W. 13, handed over the sealed tenders on the 9th November, 1946, to accused Nargundkar, that the latter took them home, that between the 9th and the 11th November he met Patel at his house or elsewhere and that accused Nargundkar showed or communicated the particulars of the tender of Doongaji to accused Patel who substituted Exrubit P-3A for his original tender before ) the 11th November, 1946. Admittedly there is no direct evidence to prove any of these facts except the first one, and the nature of the case is such that recourse could only be had to circumstantial evidence to establish those facts.
The fact that the sealed tenders were handed over by Gadgil to accused Nargundkar on the 9th November has been held proved solely on the uncorroborated testimony of Gadgil as against the denial of Nargundkar, Gadgil was himself a suspect in the case. He was kept by the police away from the office for alxmt eight months during the · investigation, he I was asked to proceed on leave at the instance of the police and ills leave was extended at their request. On the expiry of his leave he was kept off duty without salary for a period of about five months but :.. later on he was paid his full salary after he had given evidence in support of the prosecution. He made addi-tions and improvements on vital points from stage to ,. stage of his deposition and in certain particulars his -. statement was contradicted by Ramaswami, P. W. 30. . •'~ On his ,own admission he is an accomplice in respect ' .
' of the forgery of Exhibit P-27, one of the documents alleged to have been forged for purposes of. the defence ~, I ' but concerning which no prosecution was started. Exhibit P-27. bears date 31st October, 1946. Gadgil's statement about it is as follows : ' . "He (Nargundkar) put down his signature and the date 31st October, ,1946. This. order was actually written by Sh. Nargundkar \n the note-sheet, Exhibit P-27, ' in the month of July or August, 1947. The dates were antedated. In the margin of the note sheet I have put down my . ,initials S. W. G. and put the date 31st ... October, 1946. This note-sheet was not prepared on 31st October, 1946. He asked me to keep it in my custody. " The wit:lless admittedly became a party to the pre-paration of a forged document. Whether he was telling the truth, or he was telling a lie, as appears likely from his cross-examination, he is in either event, not a person on whom any relian. ce could be placed.
It is curious that this aspect of the evidence of Gadgil has not been noticed by any of the three courts below. When the ~ourt of first i~stance a~d the court of appeal arnve .. ~t concurrent. findings of fact after be-lieving the evidence of a witness, this court as the final court does not disturb such findings, save m most exceptional cases. But where a finding of fact is arriv- ~d at on the testimony. of a witness of. the character .. of Gadgil and the courts below depart from the rule of prudence that such . testimony should not be accepted. unless it is corroborated by some other evidence on the record, a finding of that character in the circum, stances of a particular. case may well be reviewed even. OU ,special leave if the other circumstances in the c;l. Se require . it,, and sμbstantial and grave injustice has resulted..
After £ully examining t;he material on tht; record we have reached the conclusion that the courts below were in error in accepting the uncorroborated testimony of Gadgil to find . the. fact that he handed, .. over the tenders . to Nargundkar. on . the 9tli . , November, 1946. The witness was not allowed to live ill a free atmosphere and was kept under poliC:e surveillance during the whole of the period of investi· gation and the trial and was rewarded with payment of his full salary after he had given evidence to the satisfaction of the prosecution. He ~s a person who (elt no hesitation in deposing on oath that he willingly' became a party to the forgery of Exhibit P-27. Assuming that the accused Nargundkar had taken the tenders to his house, the prosecution, in order to bring the guilt home to the accused, has yet to prove the other facts referred to above. No direct evidence was, adduced in proof of those facts.
Reliance was placed by the prosecution and by the courts below on certain circumstances, and intrinsic eyidence contained in the impugned document, Exhibit P-3A. In dealing with circumstantial evidence the rules specially applicable to such evidence must be borne in mind. In such cases there is always the danger that conjecture or. suspicion may take the place of legal proof and therefore it is right to recall the warning addressed by Baron Alderson to the jury in Reg v. Hodge (1) where lie said :- "The mind was apt to take a pleasure in adapting . circumstances to one another, and even in straining them a little, if need be, to force them to form parts of one connected whole; and the more ingenious the mind of the individual, the more likely was ii:, con-sidering such matters, to overreach and mislead itself, to supply some little link that is wanting, to take for granted some fact consistent with its previous theories and necessa·ry to render them complete.
" It is well to remember that in cases where the evidence is of a circumstantial nature, the circum~ stances from which the conclusion of guilt is fo be drawn should in the first instance be fully established, and all the facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused. Again, the circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency and they should be such as to exclude every hypothesis, but the one proposed to be proved. In other words, there must be a chain of evidence so far complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for a conclμsion consistent with the innocence of the accused and it must be such as to show that within all human probability the act must have been done by the accused.
In spite of the forceful arguments addressed to us by the learned Advocate-General on behalf of the State we have not been able to discover any such evidence either intnns1c within Exhibit P-3A or outside and we are constrained to observe that the courts below have just fallen into the error against which warning was uttered by Baron Alderson in the above mentioned case. The trial magistrate was of the opinion that friendship between the two accused was of a very rapid growth and that their relations were very intimate and accused 2 was in a position to influence accused 1. He thus found that there was motive for the commission of the crime. The learned Sessions Judge dis-agreed with this finding and the High Court agreed with the Sessions Judge on this point. It observed that the evidence which tended to prove · friendship or undue favour was not such as to form the basis for a finding.
It further found that there was nothing to show that the appellant Nargundkar received any illegal reward or the promise of one for showing Doongaji's tender to accused R. S. Patel. The first circumstance therefore on which the trial Judge placed considerable reliance was negatived by the court of appeal and in revision. It having been found that there was no motive whatsoever for accused Nargundkar to show the tenders to accused Patel and to· take a substituted tender from him, the main link in the chain of reasoning of the trial court vanishes. Amiable relations between the two accused or their official relationship could not be regarded· as sufficient motive for committing the crime of forgery. The mainstay of the prosecution case is the intrinsic evidence of the contents of Exhibit· P-3A itself which according to the courts below are unusual, peculiar and strange and which according to the Advocate- General could not be there if it was · a genuine document.
The argument would have force provided the premises on which it is based are correct. Having examined the contents of Exhibit P-3A, we do not find anything very unusual or extraordinary in it which could not be there without its author having seen Exhibit P-6. We now proceed to examine the s0-called peculiar features m Exhibit P-3A. In order to appreciate the points made by the learned Advocate-General it is necessary to set out certain facts. Exhibit P-9 is the notice calling for tenders for the supply of country spirit in the Seoni distillery area. The rates which were called for by this notice were as follows : (1) (1838) 2 Lew. 227. 1. Flat rate for four years. 2. Rates on sliding scale for four years, 3. All-in-rate on the sliding scale for one year 1947-48. 4. Flat rates on the basis of the price of mahua flowers for three years 1948-51. 5. All-in-sliding scale rate on the basis of the price of mahua flowers for three years 1948-51.
The trial magistrate held on a construction of it that no rate or rates of separate years were asked for in this notice and that one flat rate was only asked for, for four years. Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman in their tenders, Exhibits P-4 and P-5, quoted one flat rate for four years and did not mention separate flat rates for separate years. Doongaji m his tender, Exhibit P-6, mentioned separate flat rates for each separate year also. He did so because he consulted one Mr. Munshi, Personal Assistant to the Excise Commissioner, whether he should quote each rate separately and Mr. Munshi told him that he could give flat rate for the combined years as well as flat rates and also sliding scale rates for each year separately.
Admittedly accused 2 was working as an agent of Habibur Rahman and his son Zakirur Rahman for the distillery contracts of Betul and Seoni, and, therefore, he must have been the author not only of his own tender but of the tenders submitted bv Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman, Exhibits [1952] P-4 and P-5. All of them were acting together with the object of getting the contract though they were submitting three separate tenders. The trial magistrate held that as Habibur Rahman and Zakirur Rahman gave one flat' rate for four years as called for by Exhibit P-9, but accused 2, the author of all these tenders, did not do it in Exhibit P-3A, but followed the method of Doongaji in giving the rates of each year separately as well as the rate for the combined four years. He must have done so as he was shown the tender Exhibit P-6.
The question arises whether the circumstance that the accused Patel and Habibur Rahman and' Zakirur Rahman were acting together was such from which a necessary inference arises that the accused Patel must have been the author of all the three tenders and, if he were, that he could not have departed from the method adopted by him . in preparing· Exhibits P-4 and P-5 unless and until he had seen Exhibit P-6. We are clearly of. the opm10n that from the premises stated this inference does not· necessarily follow. Doongaji even . aft~r i;eadfr1g Eiil~ibii: P-9, could not make up his mind whether to submit the tender with one flat rate for all th~ four years or whether to submit it by giving separate flat rates for . each of the four years and made enquiry from . the office of the Excise Commissioner and then quoted separate rates for each of the four years separately also: Patel ~ho has admittedly considerable . experien~e ,of distillery contracts and about the method.
0 f submitting tenders might very well have thought that it was best to quote a flat rate for all the years as well as a flat rate for each year separately. The circumstance that he did, not . do so in the other two tenders prepared by him does not materially advance. the prosecution case. . The very object of submitting several tenders on behalf of three persons acting. in unison was to indiCate to the excise authori-ties that they were being submitt,ed by three different persons. If there . were no. variations whatsoever between tho;e tend~rs that woi'. il businessman and the whole object of quoting the rates was to earn the maximum profit. If he had seen the tender of Doongaji he would have modelled the rates in a manner that would give him the highest profit. The learned Advocate-General could not suggest any reason whatsoever why Patel would maintain his quotation for the quantity of 50,000 gallons at Rs. 2-10-6 when the rate of Doongaji was Rs. 3-3-0. [195~] •• ~ . i.
i ~ ' j - • . ~ He, could easily raise the quotation to Rs. 3 and simi-larly in all other cases he could have underbid Doongaji by 2, 3 or 6 pies at the most. He need not have maintained a disparity of 9 to 11 pies between his rates and the rates of Doongaji. In our opinion, therefore, no conclusion of any character could be drawn from the disparity in the rates of Doongaji or of Patel or of the expected uniformity in the rates of Habibur Rahman or of R. S. Patel which would establish that Exhibit P-3A had been prepared by having a look at Exhibit P-6. Another· circumstance on which reliance was placed was that certain rates in Exhibit P-3A are lower than the corresponding rates in Exhibit P-6 by only one or two pies. There is no doubt that one or two rates are lower by two pies than the rates in Exhibit P-6 but 'nothing follows from that innocent circumstance, unless one starts with a presumption of guilt.
Once it is assumed that the tender of Doongaji was shown to Patel, all these circumstances might to some extent fit in with the view that in certain respects it may have been copied from Exhibit P-6. The courts below fell into this error and departed from the rule that in a criminal case an accused · person is to be presumed to be innocent and that it is for thP. prosecution to establish his guilt conclusively. Next it was urged that in the covering letter Exhibit P-3 sent by Patel he m·emions three appen- ·dices numbered 1, 2 and 3. The same expressioP.
finds place in the covering letter Exhibit P-4 of Habibur Rahman and Exhibit P-5 of Zakirur Rahman, that appendices 1 to 3 of the tender of Habibur Rahman ·and Zakirur Rahman correctly answer to the reference in the covering letters but this is not so in Patel's case; on the other hand, instead of appendix 1, Patel has appendix l(a) and l(b) and the _number of his appendices thus goes' up t create evidence for the defence of the accused and to miure Amarnath. It is in these terms : " Congress Nagar, Nagpur, 20th November, 1946. The Commissioner of Excise, C. P. & Berar, Nagpur. Dear Sir, I beg to submit few of my complaints for such action as you may be pleased to take, which aie as under. I went to see Mr. Amarnath last week, at his residence in connection with Seoni Distillery work. I saw Mr. Edulji and his partner with Mr. Amarnath in the office room of his residence with some office files. From the papers I could recognize my tender open on the table in front of them.
As soon as I went there, all of them were astonished and they could not speak with me for a moment, and then they carried on some dry general conversation with me. Same way after about a week, when I went to Seoni for mahua bill, when Mr. Amarnath visited for sanctioning the advance, I had the opportunity to see Mr. Amarnath in dak bungalow at about 9-30 p. m. when I saw Mr. Mehta the ex-manager of Mr. Edulji (who ii also the manager of Seoni Electric Co. ) with Mr. Amarnath near table with the same file of the tender. No doubt after seeing the above two incidents I requested Mr. Amarnath to be fair in this affair. I am bringing these incidents to your notice, as I fear that something underhand may not be going on, and I am afraid that my tender may be tampered with. Hoping to get justice, Yours faithfully, Sd. R. S. Patel. " The words "Congress Nagar, Nagpur, 20th November, 1946" are in manuscr1pt, while the rest of the letter has been typed.
The digit 6 of the year 1946 has been over-written on digit 7 written in continental style and i't is apparent to the naked eye that originally the writer wrote 7 and subsequently changed it to 6. It was contended by the learned Advocate- General,-and this is the finding of the courts below, -that this letter was written some time during the investigation of the case in July or August 1947, and was antedated in order to implicate Amarnath and to use it as evidence in defence. The point for deci-sion is whether there is any evidence whatsoever to establish this fact. We have not been able to discover any such evidence on the reconi; on the other hand the instrinsic evidence in the letter proves that most likely jn came into existence on the date It bears. The relevant facts are that the tenders were opened by accused Nargundkar on the 11th November, 1946, he handed them over after making the endorsements to Amarnath and Amarnath had to submit a report about them.
It is alleged in thi~ letter· that "last week", i. e. , during the week com-mencing on the 11th November, 1946, accused Patel went to see Amarnath and there he saw Edulji Doongaji with him with his tender open on his table in front of him and that he was astonished at it, that about a week later he again went to Seoni and had the opportunity to see Amarnath and Mr. Mehta, ex-manager of Edulji Doongaji, was with him and the tender file was lying there. It was stated that he had requested Amarnath to be fair in this affair and the Commissioner was asked that he should see that his tender was not tampered with and he got justice. The whole purpose and object of this letter was to protect himself against any underhand dealing in the grant ing of the contract. In his statement under section 342, Cr. P. C. , Patel said that he saw Amarnatt on the morning of the 15th or 16th November, 1946, and he met Amarnath at Seoni at the distillery premises on the 16th November, 1946, and on the sam<!
16-10 S. C. India 71 day he met him at about 9 p. m. at: the Seoni dak bungalow and that he agam met Him on the 17th November, at 10 a. m. He also stabed that he had gone to see Amarnath at his residence at Nagpur between the dates 12th and 18th November. It was contended by the learned Advocate-General that his statement was inconsistent with the recitals contained 111 Exhibit P-24. We see nothing inconsistent between this statement and the recitals. If accused Patel saw Amarnath on the 12th, the letter having been written on the 20th November, it would be quite a correct thing to say that he saw him "last week" and the next recital when he said that about a week thereafter he saw him again is quite consistent with his going and seeing him on the 16th or 17th November. That would be about a week after the first visit.
To draw any conclusion adverse to 'the accused from a slight inaccuracy in the description of dates and to conclude therefrom that it was established that the accused Patel had seen Amarnath on the 9th November, 1946, amounts to unnecessarily stretching a point against the accused. The recitals m the letter, true or false, are quite consistent with the letter bearing date 20th November, 1946. The magistrate observed that the vagueness about the date and the week shows that the allegations therein are not correct. We have not been able to understand how the vagueness about the date could lead to the conclusion arrived at. Emphasis was laid on the over-writing of the figure 6 over the figure 7 in the manus-cript part of the letter.
It was said that the normal expenence is that it becomes a subconscious habit •o automatically write the year correctly when several months have elap~ed after · the change of the year 2nd that by sheer force of habit the correct year must have been put down when the date was entered in the letter Exhibit P-24 and that the figure was subsequently changed to 6 and this fact was an indication tliat the letter was written some time in the year 1947. In our view this argument again involves an element of conjecture. The mistake may well have been inadvertently made and the correction made there and then. That such mistakes are not very uncommon or unusual and occur in official documents is fully established on the record, in para 93 of the judgment of the learned Sessions Judge and it is said as follows: "The appellants have produced a file which is Exhibit ID-35. It contains a sheet which bears pages 9 and 10. On the 10th page there are two office notes-one is written by A. M.
Naidu and the other by the appellant Nargundkar. A. M. Naidu below his signature has written '6-4-1948'. The appellant Nargundkar below his signature has written '6-4-1947'. The other notes in the office file show that the correct date of the two signatures was 6th August, 1947. Thus in this sheet there are two mistakes in mentioning the number of the month and one mistake in mentioning the number of the year. The appellants contend that such mistakes are possible. Nobody can deny that such mistakes are possible ; but it has to be decided what inferences can be drawn from such mistakes, if there is other evidence also. " We have looked in vain for other evidern;e to prove that the letter was not written on the date it bears. Even Gadgil could not explain why he said that the letter was written in July, 1946. It is clear that he is not telling the truth in this respect.
The endorsement made on the letter by accused Nargundkar clearly bears the date 21st November, 1946, and if this letter was not given to him on the date of the endorsement and was given to him several months afterwards he would in ordinary course have made some note either on the letter or in the receipt register of his office when that letter was received by him. Then it was said that this letter was not in the file of the tenders which were kept separate. The Commissioner had noted that the letter be filed and he sent it to the office. If the office people did not put it in the file, from that circumstance no adverse inference could be drawn as to the date that the letter bears. It is clear that no forger would have in such a clumsy manner corrected 1947 into 1946 so as to leave the original figure "7" intact and thus leave evidence of its suspicious character writ large on its face.
There was no hurry about it, and a second letter without the alteration could easily have been typed. Next it was argued that the letter was not typed on the office typewriter that was in those davs, viz. , article B, and that it had been typed on the typewriter article A which did not reach Nagpur till the end of 1946. On this point evidence of certain experts was led. The High Court rightly held that opinion of such experts was not admissible under the Jndian Evidence Act as they did not fall within the ambit of section 45 of the Act. This view of the High Court was not, contested before us. It is curious that the learned Judge in the High Court, though he held that the evidence of the experts was inadmissible, proceeded nevertheless to discuss it and placed some reliance on it.
The trial magistrate and the learned Sessions Judge used this evide1ice to arrive at the finding that, as the letter wa~ typed on article A which had not reached Nagpur till the end of December, 1946, obviously the letter was antedated. Their conclusion based on inadmissible evidence has therefore to be ignored. It was further held that the evidence of experts was corroborated by the statements of the accused record-ed under section 342. The accused Patel, when questioned about this letter, made the following statement: "Exhibit P-31 was typed on the office typewriter article B. Exhibit P-24 being my personal complaint letter was typed by my Personal Assistant on one of the typewriters which were brought in the same office for trial, with a view to purchase. As this was my personal complaint no copy of it was kept in the Cor-respondence Files Exhibit P-34 and Exhibit P-35 just as there is no copy in these files of my tender Exhibit P-3A..........
In the month of September, October and November, 1946, several machines were brought for trial from various parties in our office till the typewriter article A was purchased by National Industrial Alcohol Ltd. Company. " If the evidence of the experts is elimimated, there is no material for holding that Exhibit P-24 was typed on article A. The trial magistrate and the learned Sessions Judge used part of the statement of the accused for arriving at the conclusion that the letter not having been typed on article B must necessarily have been typed on article A. Such use of the statement of the accused was wholly unwarranted. It is settled law that an admission made by a person whether amounting to a confession or not cannot be split up and part of it used against him. An admission must be used either as a whole or not at all. If the statement of the accused is used as a whole, it completely demolishes the prosecution case and, if it is not used at all, then there rema.
ins no material on the record from which any inference could be drawn that the letter was not written on the date it bears. For the reasons given above we hold that there is no evidence whatsoever on the record to prove that this letter Exhibit P-24 was antedated and ttl1at being so, the charge in respect of forgery of this letter also fails. Read as a whole, this letter cannot be said to have been written with the intention of causing any injury to Amarnath or for the purpose of creating a defence in respect of the second charge. The letter read as a whole is an innocuous document and its dominant purpose and intent was to safeguard the interests of accused Patel and to protect him against any underhand or unfair act of his ri! val contractors. We cannot infer any intent to defraud or any intention to injure Amarnath, though in order to protect himself accused Patel maL! c certain allegations against him.
We therefore set aside the conviction of both the appeal-lants under the third charge and acquit them. The result is that the consolidated appeal is allowed, r the judgments of all the three courts below are set Hanumant v. aside and the appellants are acquitted. ·Tlie State of Madhya Appellants acquitted. Pradesh. Agent for the appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 56 of 1951 : Ganpat Rai. Mahaian /. '\ Agent for the appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 57 of 1951 : Rajinder Narain. Agent for the respondent: P. A. Mehta. STATE OF TRAVANCORE-COCHIN AND 1952 ' OTHERS v. Oct. 16. THE BOMBAY CO. LTD. STATE OF TRAVANCORE-COCHIN AND ANOTHER v. MICHAEL FREDERICK AND BROS. STATE OF TRAVANCORE-COCHIN AND ANOTHER v. STAGBROOK RUBBER AND TEA ESTATES LTD. UNION OF INDIA, STATE OF BOMBAY, STATil OF MADRAS, STATil OF HYDERABAD, STATE OF PUNJAB, L STATil OF MYSORE, STATE OF 0RISSA AND STATE OF UTIAR PRADESH-Interveners. [PATANJALI SAsrn1 C. J. , MuKHERJEA, DAs, VIVIAN BosE and Gnm. AM HASAN JJ.
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