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 definition for one of the ingredients of forgery that is making of a false document.

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
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.P 12, 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

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
10
(2009) 8 SCC 751
11
2016 CrLJ 3608 (MP) : 2016 (2) JLJ 422
12
1991 CrLJ 2808 (MP)
13
R.R Diwakar v. B. Guttal, 1975 CrLJ 90 (Kant).
 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
14
25 is absent. It 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
17
services, when made. 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 is made and the accused person is the maker of the same, otherwise the accused person
is not liable for the offence of forgery”.

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
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 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.

19
Edwin H. Sutherland, White Collar Crime: The Uncut Version (1983).