Rajasthan High Court Declines Anticipatory Bail Plea Of Teacher Accused Of Forging Records, Says He Was 'Trusted To Act Honestly'
Nupur Agrawal
21 Sep 2024 10:30 AM GMT
Rajasthan High Court dismissed the anticipatory bail application of a government teacher (“petitioner”) who was accused of creating fake documents and observed that irrespective of the fact that the documents did not fetch any direct advantage to the petitioner or seemed harmful, the act in itself was considered as an offence since the intent to deceive was enough to establish the criminal guilt.
The bench of Justice Rajendra Prakash Soni was hearing the anticipatory bail application of the petitioner who was charged with cheating and forgery under IPC.
“As a teacher, he was trusted to act honestly and follow the rules…the law aims to protect integrity of government operations by criminalizing the actions that could disrupt processes, create false records or lead to future abuse,” the Court said.
The allegations against the teacher were that while working as a government teacher, he forged various documents including fake attendance certificate, attendance register, charge report, permission letter for taking over charge and charge hand-over certificate in his own favour as well as allegedly issued by various senior officers and purportedly signed by them.
Denying the allegations, it was argued by the counsel for the petitioner that the alleged forged documents neither benefitted the petitioner nor caused any loss to anyone. Hence, the alleged actions did not fulfil the ingredients for the offence of forgery.
Rejecting the arguments of the counsel for the petitioner, the Court first observed that no government employee would prepare such fake documents in his own favour without any purpose.
Furthermore, it was opined that the petitioner was involved in a serious crime irrespective of the petitioner not gaining anything out of it. The Court held that the act in itself was an offence because even if the fake documents did not seem harmful at first, they could have been misused later.
In this background, it was held that granting the anticipatory bail would be scuttling the investigation in the case.
Hence, the anticipatory bail application was dismissed.
Title: Banshi Lal v State of Rajasthan
Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Raj) 269
