The main legal point established in the judgment is that while the court has the power to compare handwriting for authenticity under Section 73 of the Indian Evidence Act, this power is reasonable and does not extend to compelling individuals to write long passages and pages for comparison. Additionally, the court clarified that the provisions of Section 311A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which allow the magistrate to order a person to give specimen signatures or handwriting, do not apply to non-accused persons.

1. This Revision Application has been filed by original Accused-Petitioner facing Sessions Case No.163 of 2009 pending before Additional Sessions Judge, Aurangabad. The Petitioner is facing offence punishable under Section 376, 328, 354 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

2. The evidence of Respondent No.2 (I have refrained to put her name, which is available in the original Petition) as PW3 was being recorded in the Sessions Case and in the course of cross-examination, a letter was put up to her. She declined that the same was in her handwriting. She was asked and she wrote out a passage to dictation of the Advocate for Petitioner-Accused and also put signatures in Marathi and English as she was asked. The Petitioner-Accused filed application Exhibit 26 and the Sessions Judge passed order that the disputed document Article A and the sample handwriting given by the prosecutrix Exhibit 24 and other admitted documents as mentioned in the order, be sent to the State Examiner of Documents for opinion whether the handwriting made in disputed document Article A was of the same person who had written the documents Exhibit 24, 15, 18 and 21. Accordingly, the documents were sent. Subsequently, on 26th March, 2012 the handwriting expert sent letter to the Court stating that the sample handwriting sent was not enough and some more sample handwriting is necessary. The handwriting expert requested that the disputed handwriting should be encircled and concerned person should be asked to give sample handwriting as per the disputed document on six pages. The letter also requested that the natural Marathi and English handwriting of the person written in ordinary course should also be sent.

3. Letter of handwriting expert was endorsed by the trial Court on 27th March, 2012 directing Advocate for Petitioner-Accused to give say. After more than 1 and 1/2 year, on 4th December 2013 vide Exhibit 30, the Petitioner-Accused filed application requesting that the complainant (prosecutrix) should be called upon to complete requirement of handwriting expert.

It appears that the A.P.P. opposed mentioning that sufficient natural handwriting of complainant/victim has been provided and the victim has also filed her say and requested to send to Mumbai handwriting expert office and so there is no need to supply more natural handwriting.

The Sessions Court heard counsel for the Petitioner-Accused as well as the A.P.P. Earlier facts were referred and the order of the trial Court shows that the application filed by the Petitioner-Accused was objected by the victim on the ground that she has already provided sufficient writing to the handwriting expert for the opinion. Advocate for Petitioner-Accused however, insisted that as soon as the earlier application Exhibit 26 was allowed, the victim was under obligation to provide her handwriting to comply the said order. The A.P.P. opposed by stating that sufficient handwriting was available for opinion. It was also claimed that the matter was in the middle of cross-examination of prosecutrix who was coming from Solapur to attend the case. The A.P.P. also claimed that it was not necessary to have opinion of the handwriting expert on Article A at the concerned stage. The A.P.P. claimed that progress of the prosecution case cannot be withheld.

The Additional Sessions Judge considered rival submissions and observed that victim is not ready to comply requirements of handwriting expert and victim cannot be forced to comply the same. It was observed that the effect of the same, if any, can be considered while passing final order and thus the application did not sustain in the eye of law. The application came to be rejected and the trial was directed to proceed. The victim-prosecutrix was directed to attend on next date for further cross-examination.

4. Against such order, present Revision has been filed. It was argued on behalf of the Petitioner-Accused that when application Exhibit 26 to send the documents to