Canteen manager acquitted 23 years after being charged with forgery

He was accused of forging fitness certificate on resuming duty after medical leave in 1999

A city court has acquitted a canteen manager, 23 years after he was charged with forging medical certificates.

Additional Sessions Judge Ajay Daga was hearing a criminal appeal filed by Dattaram Saldur in 2012 against the judgment passed on November that year by an additional chief metropolitan magistrate.

Mr. Saldur was working as a canteen manager in a post office in 1999 and had gone on a medical leave from January 4 to March 12. He was accused of forging and fabricating fitness and unfit certificates on resuming duty. A complaint was registered against him and charges were framed. He was convicted under section 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The sessions court, where he filed an appeal, was informed that those accused of creating the forged documents were acquitted and there was no evidence to show that Mr. Saldur prepared those documents on his own. The advocate appearing for Mr. Saldur also argued that his client had no knowledge that documents that were submitted in the post office were forged.

The prosecutor contended before the sessions court that the magistrate had rightly convicted Mr. Saldur as he was the one who submitted the documents.

However, the court was not convinced. “The prosecution has failed to prove that an acquitted accused had prepared the forged certificates and given it to Mr Saldur,” it observed.

Judge Daga remarked, “Merely because Mr. Saldur has tendered the documents along with his application, it does not mean that he has committed an offence under section 471 of the IPC. The prosecution has failed to satisfy the ingredients to make out an offence punishable under section 471 of the IPC.”