The main legal point established in the judgment is that without sufficient and reliable evidence, strong suspicion and grave doubt cannot lead to conviction.

JUDGMENT :

1. All these twelve connected Appeals, which have been clubbed together, are proposed to be decided through this common judgment, as all of them have similar and identical issues involved with regard to alleged forgery of CDRs by an official of the Central Co-operative Bank Ltd. Bijbehara Anantnag, used by the contractors for production of the same along-with the tender documents for allotment of various development works undertaken by the Engineering Departments.

2. The facts of the case, as are culled out from the record of all the cases are that one Ghulam Mustafa Wani General Manager of Central Cooperative Bank Ltd. Anantnag, found two forged and fictitious CDRs (Cash Deposit Receipts) bearing Nos. 30031 and 30032 pledged in favour of the Superintending Engineer PHE Khanabal, having been cleared by the said authority, when they were presented before Central Co-operative Bank Ltd. Branch Bijbehara and it was alleged that besides these two forged CDRs, 21 such like CDRs had been seized from the office of Technical Officer to Chief Engineer PWD (R&B) Kashmir, which on their verification from CC Bank Branch Bijbehara were found forged and having not been issued by the Bank but were found to have been forged by someone deceitfully and under a deep conspiracy. This report, by the said Ghulam Mustafa Wani, led to registration of a case as Crime No. 60/1998 for the commission of offences punishable under Sections 420, 468 RPC with the Police Station Crime Branch Kashmir.

3. During the investigation of the case and on verification, the CDRs bearing Nos. 30031 and 30032 were found to be forged and fictitious, and besides this, during the course of investigation, 15 more CDRs were seized, which upon verification were also found fake and fictitious. Out of these 15 CDRs, one had been seized from PHE Khanabal and the other 14 CDRs bearing Nos. 30030, 30066, 30076, 30075, 30073, 30074, 30072, 30077, 30104, 30019, 30067, 30020, 30046, 30049 and 30070 had been seized from the office of Chief Engineer R&B. During the questioning of the contractors/beneficiaries of the CDRs, as aforesaid, it was revealed that the said contractors had procured CDRs from one Ghulam Hyder Shah, first respondent in all these cases, in lieu of full payment thereof. Samples of the admitted handwritings of the accused and the disputed writings over the CDRs bearing No. 30030, 30031 and 30032 were sent for examination and forensic analysis, to the FSL, which confirmed that the said Ghulam Hyder Shah was the author of the forged CDRs.

4. During the course of investigation of Crime No. 60/1998 it was found that the Contractors with criminal intent after having practiced cheating and forgery, produced the forged CDR purportedly to have been issued by the Branch Manager of Central Cooperative Bank Ltd. Bijbehara as security deposit before the Departments who had raised the tender for execution of some construction works and that the Contractor had used these fake and forged CDRs for getting the contract allotted in their favour, therefore, separate cases were registered vide Crime Nos. 77/1998, 78/1998, 79/1998, 81/1998, 82/1998, 83/1998, 84/1998, 85/1998, 86/1998, 87/1998 and 88/1998, for the commission of offences punishable under Sections 420, 468, 471, 120-B RPC with the Police Station Crime Branch Kashmir. It was further found during the investigation of all these cases and after verification from the concerned Bank, that the fake and forged CDRs had been prepared having been purchased by the contractor from the Bank official at extremely under-rate/value and submitted along-with the tender documents in the office of concerned Engineering Departments.

5. Investigation was concluded and separate charge sheets in all the cases were laid before the court of learned Chief Judicial Magistrate Anantnag (‘trial court’). All the accused were charge sheeted by the trial court vide order dated 26.06.2004 for the commission of offences punishable under Sections 420, 46