‘Prima Facie Forgery, No Equity For Practising Fraud Before Court’: Calcutta High Court Proposes Perjury Action Against School Headmaster

The Calcutta High Court has dismissed a writ petition filed by the headmaster of Bora Junior High School and directed for a criminal investigation and trial against him, upon perusing expert evidence which prima facie indicated that signatures in one of the main documents relied upon by him, were forged. In dismissing the petition, and refusing to exercise equitable jurisdiction in favour of the petitioner due to the alleged fraud perpetrated by him, a single-bench of Justice Aniruddha Roy held: Once the expert has opined that the alleged signature appearing on the document was not the signature of Uday Das, would definitely create a doubt in the mind of the Court that fraud might have been perpetrated and practiced upon this Court. In reply, however, the respondents had submitted that the signature on the document being relied on by the petitioners was not of Uday Das, and the same had been forged, thereby “practicing fraud upon the Court as also upon the school authority on oath.” In taking these submissions into account the Court had directed the Crime Investigation Department, West Bengal to submit a report in the matter. In perusing the report of the CID and the submissions advanced by both parties, the Court was of the view that a prima facie case of fraud perpetrated by the petitioner had been made out by the CID’s experts, based on copies of the document, since the petitioner had failed to produce the original document even after repeated requests of the investigation agency.