It was undoubtedly held that the authority of a court as such in relation to lay a complaint should be considered exhaustive by section 476 and that a complaint other than that section should not be entertained. This was held in Mst. Gulshan Begum &Ors. Vs Hafiz Qazafi Khan [CRR No. 27/2016] in the High Court of Jammu And Kashmir at Srinagar by a single bench consisting of JUSTICE RAJNESH OSWAL.
It is alleged that the respondent with ulterior motive to grab the property of the petitioners filed proceedings before the court for registration, separation, possession and perpetual injunction. It is also claimed that the learned Munsiff granted a status quo order on the appropriate property without granting a fair hearing to the petitioners on the basis of an order, as without further inquiry the forged will was taken into account.
The Counsel for the side of Petitioners, argued vigorously that the court was obliged to conduct the inquiry under Section 476 Cr.P.C, since the respondent created the forged Will before the Court, and for that matter was forced to proceed under Section 195 Cr.P.C. The only contention that emerged in this petition from the side of Petitioners was the motion for a preliminary examination of the contention posed by the claimant when the petitioner submitted an application for the appearance of the forged will.
The competent counsel to the respondent Per contra, Mr Showkat Ali Khan, has vehemently argued that the impugned order was passed well into statute and the enquiry, as provided for in Section 476 Cr.P.C, may not have taken place in this case as the petitioners did not have the will forged after the same was filed with the Court.
The court relied on the supreme court in the case of “Iqbal Singh Marwah & Anr. vs. Meenakshi Marwah & anr. It was held that Section 195(1)(b)(ii) Cr.P.C would be 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 a proceeding in any court i.e., during the time when the document was in custodia legis.”
The court opined that “Section 476Cr.P.C provides the procedure to be followed in case of commission of offences as mentioned in Section 195 Cr.P.C. Therefore, the application filed by the petitioners before the trial court was misconceived as it was not the case of the petitioners that the document was forged when the same was custodia legis.” Hence, the decision of the trial court is upheld and the appeal submitted by the misunderstanding of the petitioners is thus rejected.
