Paragraph numbers below are the court’s original numbering, recovered from the source text.
18. In view of the language used in Section 340 Cr.P.C. the Court is D not bound to make a complaint regarding commission of an offence referred to in Section 19 5( I )(b ), as the Section is conditioned by the words "Court is of opinion that it is expedient in the interest of justice.''. This shows that such a course will be adopted only if the interest of justice requires and not in every case. Before filing of the complaint, the Court may hold a preliminary enquiry and record a finding to the effect that it is expedient in the interests E of justice that enquiry should be made into any of the offences referred to in Section J 95(i)(b ). This expediency will normally be judged by the Court by weighing not the magnitude of injury suffered by the person affected by such forgery or forged document, but having regard to the effect or impact, such commission of offence has upon administration of justice. It is ·possible that F such forged document or forgery may cause a very serious or substantial injury to a p~rson in the sense that it may deprive .him of a very valuable property or status or the like, but such document may be just a piece of evidence produced or given in evidence in Court, where voluminous evidence may have been adduced and the effect of such piece of evidence on the broad concept of administration of justice may be minimal. In such circumstances, G · the Court may not consider it expedient in the interest of justice to make a complaint. The broad view of clause (b )(ii), as canvassed by learned counsel for the appellants, would render the victim of such forgery or forged document remedyless. Any interpretation which leads to a situation where a victim of a crime is rendered remedyless, has to be discarded. ……. , ,_ I.S. MAR WAH v. MEENAKSHI [MATHUR,J. l
19. There is another consideration which has to be kept in mind. Sub- A section (l) of Section 340 Cr.P.C. contemplates holding of a preliminary enquiry. Nonnally, a direction for filing of a complaint is not made during the pendency of the proceeding before the Court and this is done at the stage when the proceeding is concluded and the final judgment is rendered. Section 341 provides for an appeal against an order directing filing of the complaint. B The hearing and ultimate decision of the appeal is bound to take time. Section 343(2) confers a discretion upon a Court trying the complaint to adjourn the hearing of the case if it is brought to its notice that an appeal is pending again~t the decision arrived at in the judicial proceeding out of which the matter has arisen. In view of these provisions, the complaint case may not proceed at all for decades specially in matters arising out of civil suits where C decisions are challenged in successive appellate fora which are time consuming. It is also to be noticed that there is no provision of appeal against an order passed under Section 343(2), whereby hearing of the case is adjourned until the decision of the appeal. These provisions show that, in reality, the procedure prescribed for filing a complaint by the Court is such that it may not fructify in the actual trial of the offender for an unusually long period. Delay in D prosecution of a guilty person comes to his advantage as witnesses become reluctant to give evidence and the evidence gets lost. This important consideration dissuades us from accepting the broad interpretation sought to be placed upon clause (b)(ii).
20. An enlarged interpretation to Section l 95{l)(b){ii), whereby the bar created by the said provision would also operate where after commission of an act of forgery the document is subsequently produced in Court, is capable of great misuse. As pointed out in Sachida Nand Singh, after preparing a forged document or committing an act of forgery, a person may manage to get a proceeding instituted in any civil, criminal or revenue court, either by F himself or through someone set up by him and simply file the document in the said proceeding. He would thus be protected from prosecution, either at the instance of a private party or the police until the Court, where the document has been filed, itself chooses to file a complaint. The litigation may be a prolonged one due to which the actual trial of such a person may be delayed G indefinitely. Such an interpretation would he highly detrimental to the interest of society at large.
21. Judicial notice can be taken of the fact that the Courts are nonnally reluctant to di!:ect filing of a criminal complaint and such a course is rarely adopted. It will not be fair and proper to give an interpretation which leads H A to a situation where a person alleged to have committed an offence of the type enumerated in clause (b )(ii) is either not placed for trial on account of non-filing of a cqmplaint or if a complaint is filed, the same does not come to its logical end. Judging from such an angle will be in consonance with the principle that an unworkable or impracticable result should be avoided. In B Statutory Interpretation by Francis Bennion (Third ed.) para 313, the principle has been stated in the following manner : c ''The court seeks to avoid a CQnstruction of an enactment that produces an unworkable or impracticable result,_ since this is unlikely to have been intended by Parliament.
Sometimes however, there are overriding reasons for applying such a construction, for example where it appears · that Parliament really intended it or the literal meaning is -too strong.'' The learned author has referred to Sheffield City Council v. Yorkshire Water Services Ltd., (1991) 1 WLR 58 at 71, where it was held as under : "Parliament is taken not to intend the carrying out of its enactments to be unworkable or impracticable, so the court will be slow to find in favour of a construction that leads to these consequences. This follows the path taken by judges in developing the common law. ' …… the common law of England has not always developed on strictly logical lines, and where the logic leads down a path that is beset with practical difficulties the courts have not been frightened to turn aside and seek the pragmatic solution that will best serve the needs of society." In S.J.
Grange Ltd v. Customs and Excise Commissioners, [1979] 2 All ER 91, while interpreting a provision in the Finance Act , 1972, Lord F Denning observed that ifthe literal construction leads to impracticable results, it would be necessary to do little adjustment so as to make the section workable. Therefore, in order that a victim of a crime of forgery, narri"ely, the person aggrieved is able to exercise his right conferred by law to initiate prosecution of the offender, it is necessary to place a restrictive interpretation on clause G (b)(ii).
22. Dr. Singhvi has also urged that since we are dealing with a penal provision it should be strictly construed and in ~upport of his proposition he has placed reliance upon a Constitution Bench decision in To/aram Re/uma/ v. State of Bombay, [1955] l SCR 158, wherein it was held that it is well H settled rule of construction of penal statutes that if two possible and reasonable r r r ,.1 r f I.S. MARWAHv. MEENAKSHI [MATHUR,J.] constructions can be put upon a penal provision, the Court must lean towards A that construction which exempts the subject from penalty rather than the one which imposes penalty and it is not competent for the Court to stretch out the meaning of expression used by the legislature in order to carry out the intention of the legislature. The contention is that since Section 195(l)(b)(ii) affords protection from private prosecution, it should not be given a restrictive B interpretation to curtail its scope.
We are unable to accept such broad proposition as has been sought to be urged. In Craies on Statute Law ( 1971 ed. – Chapter 21 ), the principle regarding penal provisions has been stated as under : "But penal statutes must never be construed so as to narrow the words of the statute to the exclusion of cases which those words in C their ordinary acceptations would comprehend……. But where the thing is brought within the words and within the spirit, there a penal enactment is to be construed, like any other instrument, according to the fair commonsense meaning of the language used, and the court is not to find or make any doubt or ambiguity in the language of a penal D statute, where such doubt or ambiguity would clearly not be found or made in the same language in any other instrument.'' In Lalita Jalan v. Bombay Gas Co., [2003] 6 SCC 107 this question was examined in considerable detail and it was held that the principle that a statute enacting an offence or imposing a penalty is to be strictly construed E is not of universal application which must necessarily be observed in every case. The Court after referring to Murlidhar Meghraj Loya v. State of Maharasthra, AIR (1976) SC 1929, Kisan Trimbak Kothula v. State of Maharashtra, AIR (1977) SC 435, Superintendent and Remembrancer of legal Affairs to Govt. of West Bengal v. Abani Maity, AIR (1979) SC 1029 F and State of Maharashtra v. Natwarlal Damodardas Soni, AIR (1980) SC 593 held that the penal provisions should be construed in a manner which will suppress the mischief and advance the object which the legislature had in view.
23. That apart, the section which we are required to interpret is not a G penal provision but is part of a procedural law, namely, Code of Criminal Procedure which elaborately gives the procedure for trial of criminal cases. The provision only creates a bar against taking cognizance of an offence in certain specified situations except upon complaint by Court. A penal statute is one upon which an action for penalties can be brought by a public officer A or by a person aggrieved and a penal act in its wider sense includes every . statute creating an offence against the State, whatever is the character of the penalty for the offence. The principle that a penal statute should be strictly construed, as projected by the learned counsel for the appellants cari, therefore, have no application here.
24. Coming to the last contention that an effort should be· rriade to avoid conflict of findings between the civil and criminal Courts, it is necessary to point out that the standard of proof required in the two proceedings are entirely different. Civil cases are decided on the basis of preponderance of evidence while in a criminal case the entire burden lies on the prosecution C and proof beyond reasonable doubt has to be given. There is neither any statutory provision nor any legal principle that the findings recorded in one proceeding may be treated as final or binding in the other, as both the cases have to be decided on the basis of the evidence adduced therein. While examining a similar contention in an appeal against an order directing filing of a complaint under Section 476 of old Code, the following observations D made by a Constitution Bench in MS. Sheriffv. State of Madras, AIR (1954) SC 397 give a complete answer to the problem posed : "(15) As between the civil and the criminal proceedings we are of the opinion that the criminal matters should be given precedence. There is some difference of opinion in the High Courts of India on this point. No hard and fast rule can be laid down but we do not consider ~hat the possibility of conflicting decisions in the civil and criminal Courts is a relevant consideration. The law envisages such an ev~n'tualitY when it expressly refrains from making the decision of one Court binding on the other, or even relevant, except for certain limited purposes, such as sentence or damages. The only relevant consideration here is the likelihood of embarrassment.' (16) Another factor which weighs with us is that a civil suit often drags on for years and it is undesirable that a criminal prosecution should wait till everybody concerned has forgotten all about the crime. The public interests demand that criminal justice should be swift and sure; that the guilty should be punished while the events are still fresh in the public mind and that the innocent should be absolved as early as is consistent with a fair and impartial trial. Another reason is that it is undesirable to let things slide till memories have gn,>wn too dim to trust. I.S. MAR WAH v. MEENAKSHI [MATHUR, J.] This, however, is not a hard and fast rule. Special considerations A obtaining in any particular case might make some other course more expedient and just. For example, the civil case or the other criminal proceeding may be so near its end as to make it inexpedient to stay it in order to give precedence to a prosecution ordered under S. 476. But in this case we are of the view that the civil suits should be stayed till the criminal proceedings have finished."
25. In view of the discussion made above, we are of the opinion that Sachida Nand Singh has been correctly decided and the view taken therein is the correct view. Section 195(l)(b)(ii) Cr.P.C. would be attracted only when the offences enumerated in the said provision have been committed C with respect to a document after it has been produced or given in evidence in a proceeding in any Court i.e. during the time when the document was in custodia legis. 26.In the present case, the will has been produced in the Court subsequently. It is nobody's case that any offence as enumerated in Section D l 95(b )(ii) was committed in respect to the said will after it had been produced or filed in the Court of District Judge. Therefore, the bar created by Section 195(l)(b)(ii) Cr.P.C. would not come into play and there is no embargo on the power of the Court to take cognizance of the offence on the basis of the complaint filed by the respondents. The view taken by the learned Additional E Sessions Judge and the High Court is perfectly correct and calls for no interference. 27.The appeal is, accordingly, dismissed. Criminal Appeal No. 904/1998
28. This appeal has been preferred by the complainant against the judgment and order dated 6.2.1998 of the Madras High Court by which the criminal revision petition preferred by the second respondent Ramaraj was allowed and he was acquitted of the charges under Section 467 and 471 IPC on the ground that in view of the bar created by Section 195(1)(b)(ii) Cr.P.C., G the learned Magistrate could not have taken cognizance on the police report. According to the case of the prosecution, the sale deed had been forged earlier and thereafter the same was filed in the Civil Court. For the reasons already discussed, the appeal is allowed and the judgment of the High Court is set aside. The criminal revision petition filed by the second respondent H A shall be heard and decided by the High Court afresh and in acc?rdance with law. Criminal Appeal Nos. !069-1070 of 1998
30. The High Court in the impugned order dismissed the petition filed B by the appellant under Section 482 Cr.P.C. relying upon the decision of this Court in Sachida Nand Singh. In view of the reasons already discussed, the appeals lack merit and are hereby dismissed. D.G. Appeal dismissed.