Before starting further we should know in brief what is a document, under which section it’s defined and why a document is important and what are the penalties for a forged signature and a fabricated document.
Section 3 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 defined a document as, “ Documents means any matter expressed upon any substance by means of letters, figures or marks, or by more than one of those means, intended to be used, or which may be used, for the purpose of recording that matter”.
Now, forgery is defined under IPC section 463, a fake document or a document with an intention to cause damage to anyone or to commit fraud. Hence, can be described as a means to achieve an end of action or scheme fabricated to mislead someone into believing a fake document, a lie or inaccuracy.
HOW TO CHALLENGE FORGED SIGNATURE:
Section 465 of the Indian Penal Code deals with the penalty for forged signature and documents in India.
Firstly a person needs to know very carefully the difference between a real and a fake signature. In court of law if an advocate is not able to recognize the difference he must do things noted below:
●Take a photocopy of a signature which was already done and at that particular time take a paper and make the opposition to sign again so that you can match the signatures, if both the signatures are different then it’s a sign of forgery.
●If an advocate is not able to recognize then an effective signature verification system
must have the ability to detect all these types of forgeries by means of reliable,
customized algorithms.
●The handwriting expert would conduct all the necessary analysis, then provide a
conclusion.
HOW TO SPOT FABRICATED DOCUMENTS:
●Check for obvious mistakes from a simple spelling mistake to inconsistencies in
typefaces.
●Look for unusual formatting or text that’s seen to be more blurry than the rest of the
document.
●Check documents against official databases. A way to check whether a document is fake
or real is to check the document against an official database and this will ensure that you
are battling against fraudsters.
PENALTY:
As per section 465 of IPC:
●The offence is punishable by a jail cycle upto 2 years .
●Significant fine.
●Jail cycle and fine both
Written by Kratika Rajawat