The Bombay High Court set aside a decision by the Sessions Court that allowed an ink-age test in a cheque dishonour case. Justice Anil L. Pansare of the Nagpur bench, while hearing a writ petition challenging the sessions court order, emphasized that there is no scientific method available to accurately determine the age of ink in a document.
Brief Facts of the Case:
The case revolves around a cheque dishonour complaint filed by the petitioner, Dnyaneshwar Gulhane, against the respondent, Vinod Lokhande, under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881. The petitioner alleged that the respondent issued a blank signed cheque to him as security in 2010, and subsequently, in 2016, the petitioner misused the cheque by filling in the remaining contents. In response, the respondent sought an ink-age test on the disputed cheque and applied to the Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) for this purpose.
The JMFC, in rejecting the respondent’s application, relied on a Rajasthan High Court judgment in the case of Manish Singh v. Jeetendra Meera ((Misc. Petition No. 3093/2018), which held that there is no mechanism to determine the age of the ink used in a document. The respondent, dissatisfied with this decision, approached the Sessions Court through a revision application. The Sessions Court, while acknowledging the precedent, argued that the accused had a right to a satisfactory opportunity to defend their case. The Court believed that the accuracy of the ink-age test might be in doubt, but this should not prevent the accused from having the option to conduct a scientific test to determine the age of the ink on the cheque.
Subsequently, the petitioner filed a writ petition before the Bombay High Court challenging the Sessions Court's decision.
Contentions of the Parties:
In this context, the key contention revolved around whether an ink-age test should be allowed. The petitioner argued against it, citing expert opinions that suggested the absence of a definitive scientific method to assess the age of handwriting accurately. On the other hand, the respondent contended that a scientific ink-age test would aid in establishing the timeline of the written content on the disputed cheque and suggested that the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) could conduct such tests. However, expert opinions cited by the petitioner emphasized the limitations and approximate nature of such tests and their applicability only to atomic research.
Observations by the Court:
The Bombay High Court found that pursuing an ink-age test would be futile, considering the expert opinion recorded by the Madras High Court in Kanagaraj .vs. Ramamoorthy, (C.R.P. (MD) No.601/2021 and C.M.P. (MD) No.3344/2021). The Madras High Court had confirmed the absence of a definitive scientific method to assess the age of handwriting accurately. The expert from the Forensic Science Department in Chennai stated that there is no scientific method available in the state to scientifically assess the age of handwriting and offer an opinion. While there is a facility at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai that could provide an approximate range of the time during which the writing was made, the opinion would not be exact, and it is limited to atomic research, not for documents related to litigation.
Decision of the Court:
In light of this expert opinion, the Bombay High Court upheld the decision of the JMFC and set aside the order of the Sessions Court.
Case Name: Dnyaneshwar Eknath Gulhane vs. Vinod Ramchandra Lokhande
Coram: Justice Anil L Pansare
Case No.: Criminal Writ Petition No. 542/2023
Advocate of the Petitioner: N. R. Shiralkar
Advocate of the Respondent: S. G. Joshi
Read Judgment @LatestLaws.com
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