I.

HISTORY OF FORGERY

The law of forgery may have originated with an early Roman law (c. 80 B.C.) that prohibited
falsification of documents describing the passing on of land to heirs. The precise scope of what was
considered forgery at common law is not universally agreed upon, but a statute passed in the time of
Queen Elizabeth I (An Act against forgers of false deeds and writings, 5 Eliz. 1, c. 14 (1562) (England))
prohibited forgery of publicly recorded, officially sealed documents with the intent to affect the title to
land, as well as the knowing use of such documents as evidence in court. In the first major expansion
of the law’s coverage, a 1726 decision declared that a false endorsement on an unsealed private
document was indictable both under the Elizabethan statute and at common law (Rex v. Ward, 92 Eng.
Rep. 451 (K.B. 1726)). Writing only half a century later, William Blackstone was able to declare, after
referring to several contemporary statutes, that ‘‘there is now hardly a case possible to be conceived
wherein forgery, that tends to defraud, whether in the name of a real or fictitious person, is not made a
capital crime’’. Blackstone defined common law forgery, which he also called crimen falsi, as ‘‘the
fraudulent making or altering of a writing to the prejudice of another man’s right.’’ Pillory, fines, and
imprisonment were the penalties in those rare cases that were not subject to capital punishment.

II. DEFINITION OF FORGERY

Forgery under Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860 U/s 463 means “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”.

Forgery is a Criminal offence in India and is mentioned in Section 463 in chapter XVIII [Of Offences
relating to documents and to Property Marks] of Indian Penal Code.

III. COMPONENTS OF FORGEY

1. Making of False Documents

Making of false document constitutes forgery. What amounts to making of false document is
mentioned in section 464 of IPC. The making of a false document is a sine qua non for committing
the offense of forgery. Section 464 talks about a person with malafied intent as follows;

➢ Making or executing a document causing to be believed that it was made or executed by some
other person or by authority of some other person or,
➢ Altering any material part of the document without lawful authority
➢ Causes any person to sign, execute or alter any document form a person who could not by
reason of unsound of mind, intoxication or deception know the contents of the document.
 The person who makes a false document or false electronic record commits forgery. It is essential
that the false document or the false electronic record, when made, must either appear on its face to
be, or be in fact one, which, if true, would possess some legal validity. In other words, the document
or the electronic record must be capable of effecting the fraud intended.

Merely changing a document would not amount to forgery. The alteration of document under Section
464 of IPC needs to be done for some gain or with such objective on the part of the accused.

It is not necessary that the document should be published or made in the name of an existing person.

2. TO CAUSE DAMAGE OR INJURY TO THE PUBLIC OR TO ANY PERSON

There must be intention to cause some damage or injury to public or and individual. For e.g. If A
alters a clause of the deed without intention to causes any damage to any person, then it will not be
considered forgery.

Thus, intention is key of the offence. The word fraudulently and dishonestly shows that intention is
required and these are defined in Section 25 & 24 of Indian Penal Code respectively. It is immaterial
whether damage, injury or fraud is actually caused or not. So, injury or intent to cause injury needs
to be proved.

3. SUPPORT ANY CLAIM OR TITLE

It clear that even if a man has a legal claim or title to property, he will be liable for the offence of
forgery if he counterfeits documents in order to support it. An actual intention to convert an illegal
or doubtful claim into an apparently legal claim is dishonest and will constitute the offence of
forgery.

The word claim does not only mean claim on property it can be claim on anything like custody of
child or admission in a university.

4. TO CAUSE ANY PERSON TO PART WITH PROPERTY

This means that to make any person remove from possession of any property or give it up or sell or
anything to make him part from that. It is not necessary that the property exist at the time when a
person is made to be part with the property.
5. INTENT TO COMMIT FRUAD

The word “defraud” includes an element of deceit. Deceit is not an ingredient of the definition of
the word “dishonestly” while it is an important ingredient of the definition of the word
“fraudulently”. The former involves a pecuniary or economic gain or loss while the latter by
construction excludes that element. Further, the juxtaposition of the two expressions “‘dishonestly”
and “fraudulently” used in the various sections of the Code indicates their close affinity and therefore
the definition of one may give colour to the other. To illustrate, in the definition of “dishonestly”,
wrongful gain or wrongful loss is the necessary enough. So too, if the expression “fraudulently’ were
to be held to involve the element of injury to the person or persons deceived, it would be reasonable
to assume that the injury should be something other than pecuniary or economic loss. Though almost
always an advantage to one cause loss to another and vice versa, it need not necessarily be so. Should
we hold that the concept of fraud” would include not only deceit but also some injury to the person
deceived, it would be appropriate to hold by analogy drawn from the definition of “dishonestly” that
to satisfy the definition of “‘fraudulently” it would be enough if there was a non- economic
advantage to the deceiver or a non-economic loss to the deceived. Both need not co-exist.

The expression ‘fraud’ involves two elements, deceit and injury to the person deceived. Injury is
something other than economic loss, that is, deprivation of property, whether movable or immovable
or of money and it will include and any harm whatever caused to any person in body, mind,
reputation or such others. In short, it is a non- economic or non-pecuniary loss. A benefit or
advantage to the deceiver, will almost always cause loss or detriment to the deceived. Even in those
rare cases where there is a benefit or advantage to the deceiver, but no corresponding loss to the
deceived, the second condition is satisfied

IV. TYPE OF FORGERY

Forgery can be divided into different types based on the purpose it is made for or the type of document
that is being forged.

1. SECTION 466 OF IPC DEFINES A FORGERY OF RECORD OF COURT OR OF PUBLIC

REGISTER

The section states that whoever forges either a document purporting to be a record or proceeding of
or in a court of justice, or a register of birth, baptism, marriage or burial, or a register kept by a public
servant in his official capacity, or an authority to institute or defend a suit, or to take any proceedings
therein, or to confess judgment, or a power of attorney, shall be punished with simple or rigorous
imprisonment for a term extending up to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine. This is an
aggravated form of forgery for which the punishment has been enhanced.
 A new explanation has been inserted by the Information Technology Act, 2000 in this section which
states that for the purposes of this section the word “register” includes any list, data or record of any
entries maintained in the “electronic form” as defined by section 2(1)(r) of the Information
Technology Act, 2000 according to which the expression “electronic form” with reference to
information means any information generated, sent, received or stored in media, magnetic, optical,
computer memory, micro film, computer generated micro fiche or similar device.

2. SECTION 467 OF IPC MENTIONS THE FORGERY OF VALUABLE SECURITY, WILL

ETC.

Forgery of valuable security, will, etc. has been punished under this section. The section states that
whoever forges a document which purports to be either a valuable security or a will, or an authority
to adopt a son, or which purports to give authority to any person either to make or transfer any
valuable security, or to receive the principal, interest, or dividends thereon, or to receive or deliver
any money, movable property, or valuable security, or any document purporting to be an acquittance
or receipt acknowledging the payment of money, or an acquittance or receipt for the delivery of any
movable property or valuable security, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with simple
or rigorous imprisonment for a term extending up to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.

The offence under this section is aggravated form of forgery. It is a very serious offence as the
punishment prescribed shows. Where a person who is not to sign a document sign it for the purpose
of making it a valid document, he is guilty of signing a false document. As such copying the signature
of an agent on a blank draft form of that bank by a co-conspirator was held to be an offence under
this section. Getting registered a sale deed by impersonating the real owner is punishable under this
section.

An unregistered document, until registered is not a valuable security, nevertheless it will be regarded
a valuable security within the meaning of this section.

3. SECTION 468 OF IPC GIVES FORGERY FOR THE PURPOSE OF CHEATING

Cheating is defined under section 415 of IPC and it is crime of deceiving a person and then inducing
such person to deliver any property.

This section punishes forgery for the purpose of cheating. It says that whoever commits forgery with
the intention that the document or electronic record forged shall be used for the purpose of cheating,
shall be punished with simple or rigorous imprisonment for a term extending up to seven years, and
shall also be liable to fine.
 The section requires that forgery must be committed and the intention of the offender must be to use
the forged document or forged electronic record for the purpose of cheating. Whether the intention
materializes or not is of no consequence. This offence is also an aggravated form of forgery for
which enhanced punishment has been prescribed.

For this section it is not necessary that the accused must really cheat, only intention to cheat will
fulfil the elements of offence

4. SECTION 469 OF IPC MENTION FORGERY FOR THE PURPOSE OF HARMING

REPUTATION

A person convicted under section 469 will also be convicted under section 500 of the code

V. FORGERY IN OTHER COUNTRIES

1. UNITED KINGDOM

The crime is similar to that of India. It is mentioned under forgeries act 1913 in UK. This
mentions many types of forgeries and its punishment. The original definition to forgery in
the act defines it as act to using the forged document as genuine. But in India it is mentioned
in section 471 of IPC as a different crime from forgery itself. It says that using a forged
document as genuine has been made punishable under this section. The section states that
whoever either fraudulently or dishonestly uses as genuine any document or electronic
record which he either knows to be a forged document or electronic record or which he has
reason to believe to be a forged document or electronic record shall be punished in the same
manner as if he had forged such document or electronic record. The offender can be
convicted under this section only when he has fraudulent or dishonest intention and with
such intention, he uses any document or electronic record as genuine when he knows a
forged document or electronic record under the Indian Penal Code.

There was a controversy as to whether this section is directed against some other person
than the person who has actually done the forgery. The controversy seems to have been
settled and it can now be said that a forger can be punished both for forging a document as
well as for using that document as genuine.
2. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

In the U.S., depending on the type of documents forged, forgeries are primarily classified in
three degrees: first degree, second degree, and third degree. The first two degrees are
felonies and the third degree amounts to a misdemeanour. The first-degree forgery involves
the actual presentation or use of any falsely made, altered or possessed document with the
intent to deceive or defraud. The second-degree forgery does not require use or presentation
of the documents. No act is a crime if it has not been previously established as such either
by statute or common law. Every state in the U.S. has established laws regarding forgery
offenses. The punishment for forgery varies from place to place. In most states, a person
convicted of misdemeanour must face a jail sentence of at least one year. However, a
conviction for felony must face an imprisonment more than one year. In addition to jail
sentence, a convict can be required to pay a fine or make restitution to victim.

3. REPUBLIC OF IRELAND

In the Republic of Ireland, forgery is an offence under section 25(1) of the Criminal Justice
(Theft and Fraud Offences) Act, 2001 which provides:

“A person is guilty of forgery if he or she makes a false instrument with the intention that it
shall be used to induce another person to accept it as genuine and, by reason of so accepting
it, to do some act, or to make some omission, to the prejudice of that person or any other
person”.

A person guilty of forgery is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term

not exceeding ten years, or to a fine, or to both.

Any offence at common law of forgery is abolished. The abolition of a common law offence
of forgery does not affect proceedings for any such offence committed before its abolition.

Except as regards offences committed before the commencement of the Criminal Justice
(Theft and Fraud Offences) Act, 2001 and except where the context otherwise requires,
without prejudice to section 65(4)(a) of that Act, references to forgery must be construed in
accordance with the provisions of that Act.
VI. MODERN CONTEXT 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. These forgeries are very difficult to trace. They
can be traced by cross checking it with some existing proof if it comes in the light that a
particular document one is dealing with is forged. For example, in case of forgery of
prescription the medical stores can crosscheck with the doctors.

Forgery can be as small as faking your mother’s signature on a note justifying your absence
from school or as big as in the famous case of literary forgery which took place with the 1983
"discovery" of the alleged "Hitler Diaries." The diaries supposedly contained passages written
by Adolf Hitler between 1932 and 1945. The diaries were actually written by a forger named
Konrad Kujau in the early 1980's.

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. Image forgery may lead to hazards.
In banking system image forgery is a big threat, this result into big frauds. Nowadays detecting
these types of forgeries has become very useful to reduce these problems at present. To
determine whether a digital image is original is a big challenge. To find the marks of tampering
in a digital image is a challenging task. Tampering is normally done to cover objects in an
image in order to either produce false proof or to make the image more pleasant for appearance.

There are many cases in digital image forgery, all these cases are classified into three categories
based on the process of creating fake images the group are image retouching, and image
splicing, copy-move attack. Image forgery is basically a modification of image to conceal some
meaningful or useful information. The common manipulations of a digital image are copy-
move and cut-paste forgery.
The different methods of forgery detection include examination, authentication and
verification. Multiple methods of detection may be used to correctly identify a single forgery.
More than one opinion on the results of detection methods also may be needed to confirm that
a forgery has definitely occurred. Detection of forgery through examination, authentication and
verification may be used to identify almost any type of forgery, including handwritten forgery,
counterfeit forgery, digital forgery and art forgery.

Forgery detection by examination involves looking closely at an object to determine if it is

valid. For example, to check an art piece for signs of forgery, an examiner may look for
indications that the piece was not created in a specific time period. If a piece of supposedly
antique art is in a new wood frame or machine-made nails were used in a supposedly aged
frame, these signs of forgery may be detected through an examination.

Forgery detection by authentication will use tests to conclude if an item is real. Authentication
must be carried out with a measurable test. For example, methods of authentication on
suspected forged art may include carbon dating, X-ray diffraction and infrared analysis. Some
methods of authentication are more reliable than others, and newly released authentication tests
usually must be backed up with another reliable test until the new tests are proved reliable.

Forgery detection through verification involves obtaining confirmation and locating evidence
to conclusively determine if forgery has occurred. Verification is often used to detect forged e-
mails for job scams; the receiver of the e-mail may simply look up the information of the
company or call a representative of the company to confirm whether the e-mail is real. A check
can be verified by depositing the check in a bank and waiting for it to clear, and a signature
may be verified if witnesses can swear or prove they were present when a document was signed.

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.
VII. CONCLUSION, CRITICISM AND SUGGESTIONS

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. Forgery is basically an economic crime so it is done only for monetary benefit mostly. Forgery is
basically an act of defrauding somebody by use of fake documents.

Forgery 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".

White-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.

Things that can be forged includes mainly of but are not limited to wills, patent, cheque, signature,
pieces of art, deeds, stock certificate etc.

A criminal record for forgery is very damaging because it can hinder many aspects of day to day living,
from getting credit to obtaining employment opportunities. The only way to avoid these frightening
prospects is to get a criminal defence attorney who will aggressively seek to discredit the evidence of
the prosecution and law enforcement.

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.

There are already existing laws of forgery which are pretty much stringent so nothing can be done in
making new laws. To curb the forgery there are many methods which can range from very complex
forensics techniques to very simple analysing techniques. So, in banks or schools or universities these
methods can be taught to people who are working there in there training sessions.

Another one can be a way to aware people of crime and punishment of forgery. So, there may not be
sufficient means present to detect the modern-day techniques of forgery but by teaching people and
making more professionals in the field of forgery by inculcating more courses than the problem can be
solved.
VIII. BIBLIOGRAPHY

➢ BOOKS
✓ The Indian Penal Code Bare Act.
✓ Information Technology Act Bare Act.
✓ Edwin H. Sutherland, White Collar Crime: The Uncut Version (1983).
✓ Detecting Forgery: Forensic Investigation of Documents by Joe Nickel.
✓ Ratanlal and Dhirajlal, the Indian Penal Code, Thirty Fourth Edition, 2014.
✓ The Indian penal code by S.N. Misra, Central Law publications, 20th edition.

➢ WEBSITE

✓ www.legislation.gov.uk
✓ www.sciencedirect.com
✓ www.wikipedia.com
✓ www.iresearchnet.com