LAW FOR ALL

scope of sec.195 of Cr.P.C. = a complaint against the respondents alleging commission of offences punishable under Sections 468 and 471 of the IPC. Crime No.41/10 was accordingly registered in the Central Crime Branch, Chennai Suburban, St. Thomas Mount for the said offences against respondents 2, 3 and 4. Aggrieved, the respondents filed Criminal O.P. No.15917 of 2010 for quashing of the FIR as also investigation in connection therewith =suit based on two forged sale deeds = In Iqbal Singh Marwah’s case (supra) a Constitution Bench of this Court had authoritatively declared that Section 195(1)(b)(ii) Cr.P.C. was attracted only when the offences enumerated in the said provision have been committed with respect to a document after it has been produced or given in evidence in any court and during the time the same was in custodia legis.= It would be a strained thinking that any offence involving forgery of a document if committed far outside the precincts of the Court and long before its production in the Court, could also be treated as one affecting administration of justice merely because that document later reached the court records.- The sequitur of the above discussion is that the bar contained in Section 195(1)(b)(ii) of the Code is not applicable to a case where forgery of the document was committed before the document was produced in a court.”- the bar contained in Section 195 against taking of cognizance was not attracted to the case at hand as the sale deeds relied upon by GWL for claiming title to the property in question had not been forged while they were in custodia legis.= In the light of the above, the High Court was wrong in quashing the FIR on the ground that the allegations did not constitute an offence even when the same were taken to be true in their entirety. It was also, in our view, wrong for the High Court to hold that the respondents were not the makers of the documents or that the filing of a civil suit based on the same would not constitute an offence. Whether or not the respondents had forged the documents and if so what offence was committed by the respondents was a matter for investigation which could not be prejudged or quashed by the High Court in exercise of its powers under Section 482 of Cr.P.C. or under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.