Offense of Forgery and making of false documents under the Indian Law

Forgery means falsely making or materially altering, with intent to defraud, any writing which, if
genuine, might apparently be of legal efficacy or the foundation of a legal liability.2 The making
with a fraudulent intent of a written instrument apparently capable of affecting a fraud.3

As per section 463 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 whoever makes any false documents or false
electronic record or part of a document or electronic record, with intent to cause damage or injury,
to the public or to any person, or to support any claim or title, or to cause any person to part with
property, or to enter into any express or implied contract, or with intent to commit fraud or that
fraud may be committed, commits forgery.4

Section 463 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 provides definition of the offense of forgery and
Section 464 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 substantiate it and provide answer as to when making
a false document could be said to have been made for the purpose of committing an offense under
section 463 of the Indian Penal Co9de, 1860. We can say that section 464 of IPC provides

1
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rItMNAs-
At0/V01g6N4bFoI/AAAAAAAAIY8/aBzuGUC2EYUQ2FpeXTLNKgSIZLjjA4VvQCLcB/s640/forgery.jpg
2
Black's Law Dictionary: 2nd Edition
3
Ballentine's Law Dictionary
4
Section 463 of Indian Penal Code,1860
definition for one of the ingredients of forgery that is making of a false document. Section 465
prescribes punishment for forgery as maximum of 2 years imprisonment or fine or both.5

The elements of forgery are6:

1. The making of a false document or part of it.

Making of any false document, in view of the definition of forgery is the sine qua non. What would
amount to making of a false document is specified in section in s.464 thereof. 7What is there for
necessary is to execute a document with the intention of causing is to be believed that such
document inter alia was made by the authority of a person by whom or by whose authority he
knows that it was not made. 8

In the case of Nagvi Askari v. C.B.I9, the court held that “ A person is said to make a false document
or record if he satisfies one of the three conditions as noticed hereinbefore and provided for under
the said section.

a) The first condition being that the document has been falsified with intention of causing
it to be believed that such document has been made by a person by whom the person
falsifying the document knows that it was not made.
b) The second criteria of the section deals with a case where a person without lawful
authority alters document after it has been made.
c) The third and the final condition of section 464 deals with a document, signed by a
person who due his mental capacity does not know the contents of the document which
were made i.e. because of intoxication or unsoundness of mind etc. Such is also not the
case before the indisputably therefore the accused before us could not have been
convicted with the making of a false document.

5
Section 465 of Indian Penal Code, 1860
6
Ratanlal & Dhirajlal, The Indian Penal Code (25th Edition), LexisNexis
7
S.N Misra, Indian Penal Code(21st Edition), Central Law Publication
8
Ibid of 4
9
AIR 2010 SC 528 : (2009) 15 SCC 643
In the matter of Md. Ibrahim & Ors V/s State of Bihar & Anr10, , it was held that, a person is said
to have made a ‘false document’, if:

a) He made or executed a document claiming to be someone else or authorized by someone

else; or,
b) He altered or tampered a document; or,
c) He obtained a document by practicing deception, or from a person not in control of his
senses.

In the case of Harvir Singh v. The state of Madhya Pradesh 11the Sub-Divisional Officer( SDO)
issued a caste certificate. The application for the same was supported by affidavit of the father of
the applicant. Later the High Power Scrutiny Committee cancelled the certificate. A complaint was
filed alleging forgery, cheating, conspiracy etc. The High Court held that no offense of forgery
was constituted as neither signature nor seals etc. of Sub Divisional Officer were forged but the
caste certificate was issued by the SDO, himself and therefore it was not a false document in the
eyes of law according to the provisions of section 464 of IPC.

In the case of Shankerlal Vishwakarma v. State of M.P12, a school inspector prepared under his
own signature false pay bills containing false claims for salaries of teachers who had not worked
within his jurisdiction, some of whom being purely factious, and enchased them from the treasury.
He was held to be guilty of making a false document but not of forgery because he had not made
the signature or writing of another, nor had altered the pay bills.

2. Such making should be with the intent

(a) To cause damage or injury to (i) public, or (ii) any person; or

10
(2009) 8 SCC 751
11
2016 CrLJ 3608 (MP) : 2016 (2) JLJ 422
12
1991 CrLJ 2808 (MP)
 The damage or injury must be intended to be caused by the false document to the public or
any individual. 13Thus, a police officer who alters his diary so as to show that he had not
kept certain persons under surveillance does not commit forgery, inasmuch as there is no
risk of loss or injury to any individual and the element of fraud as defined in section 25 is
absent. 14It is intent to cause damage or injury which constitutes the gist of the offense. It
is immaterial whether damage, injury or fraud is actually caused or not15.

(b) To support any claim or title

An actual intention to convert an illegal or doubtful claim into an apparently legal one is
dishonesty and will amount to forgery.16

(c) To cause any person to part with property. For example, if A gave an order to B to buy the
material for making and to make a silver tea service for him, and C, before the tea service
was made or the materials for making it had been bought were to make a false letter
purporting but falsely to be signed by A, authorizing B to deliver to D the tea service when
made C, would have committed forgery within the meaning of section 463 by making false
document with intent to cause B to part with property, namely the tea services, when made.
17
A written certificate has been held to be property within the meaning of this section.

(d) To cause any person to enter into express or implied contract

(e) To commit fraud or that fraud may be committed.

Recently, in Sheila Sebastian v. R. Jawaharaj18 a Two-Justices’ Bench of the Hon’ble Supreme

Court, “strictly interpreted” the provisions defining forgery in the Indian Penal Code 1860
concluded that “for constituting an offence under Section 464 it is imperative that a false document

13
R.R Diwakar v. B. Guttal, 1975 CrLJ 90 (Kant).
14
Sanjiv Ratnappa, (1932) 34 Bom LR 1090, 56 Bom 488
15
Kalyanmal, (1937) Nag 45.
16
Soshi Bhushan, (1893) 15 A11 210,217
17
Soshi Bhushan, (1893) 15 A11 210,217, 218
18
Criminal Appeal Nos. 359-360 of 2010
is made and the accused person is the maker of the same, otherwise the accused person is not liable
for the offence of forgery”.

In the modern context forgery is a very much of prevalent crime because of use of advance
computer technologies to forge a document. In this era, Digital Image Forgery has been
increasingly easy to perform, so the reliability of the image is thus becoming an important issue to
be focus on. It does not differ very much in nature to conventional image forgery. Instead of using
photograph digital image forgery deals with the digital image. By using the tool such as Adobe
Photoshop, GIMP, Coral Paint fake images can be created as some of the tools are open source.
With so many types of forgery used to create counterfeit art, money and financial documents, one
suspected forgery may have to go through examination, authentication and verification before it
can be reasonably identified as real or fake. In some instances, even after the suspected item has
been completely reviewed, an argument about its authenticity can continue. As counterfeiters learn
more and more advanced ways to create forgeries, the technology of forgery detection has had to
advance, as well. The science of forgery detection continues to evolve with new methods of
examination, authentication and verification.

Conclusion

Forgery is a crime of altering, counterfeiting or making of fake documents for the purpose of
deceiving any person. The main objective of forgery is to gain something illegally or to cause
someone wrongful loss. It is basically an economic crime so it is done only for monetary benefit
mostly. It is basically an act of defrauding somebody by use of fake documents. It is called a white-
collar crime because it is a non-violent crime which is done only for financial gain. White collar
crime was first defined by sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a crime committed by a person
of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation". 19White-collar crime shall
constitute those classes of non-violent illegal activities which principally involve traditional
notions of deceit, deception, concealment, manipulation, breach of trust, subterfuge or illegal
circumvention. The stringent laws can be helpful for the crime of forgery. It is very important for
us to make lawful detection techniques which abide by law so as to not be self-incriminatory. So,
from my point of view a cross checking phenomena devised to check every forgery will be very

19
Edwin H. Sutherland, White Collar Crime: The Uncut Version (1983).
important. Also the digitalization of the public records will be helpful because to do forgery a
very advanced hacking skill will be necessary, so ordinary men will not be able to forge it.