( 1 ) THE appellant was tried upon a charge under Section 467 of the Indian Penal Code by a learned Assistant Sessions Judge, Alipore, sitting with a Jury. The Jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty which the learned Judge accepted. The appellant was convicted and sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 4 1/2 years.

( 2 ) THE prosecution case was that the appellant, a pleader's clerk, committed forgery by altering the digit * "8" to * "3" of the figure * "1368" as also by erasing the word * (sic) in a copy of a registered bainapatra kept in volume 85 at Alipore Sub-registry Office. The charge however way forging * a certain document purporting to be a valuable security, to wit, a registered bainapatra, executed by Nabiruddin Mistry in favour of Bepin Behary Das, deed No. 7675 of the year 1955 recorded in volume No. 85 at page 288 etc.

( 3 ) THE appellant pleaded not guilty to the charge and his case was that he had been coerced to make a confessional statement to the Sub-Regis trar, Alipore.

( 4 ) IT is not disputed that nowhere in his summing up did the learned Judge refer to the document as a copy of the registered bainapatra. As already observed, the ch