03-12-2012, 06:11 PM
Project on Criminal Liability of Forgery under Banking Sector
Criminal Liability.docx (Size: 39.98 KB / Downloads: 32)
Introduction
Whoever makes any false documents or false electronic record or part of a document or electronic record, with intent to cause damage or injury, to the public or to any person, or to support any claim or title, or to cause any person to part with property, or to enter into any express or implied contract, or with intent to commit fraud or that fraud may be committed, commits forgery.
Statement of problem
Forgery is an that act which cannot be find out or can be recognise by a first instance, if a man is not a specialisation of that area. By this research, researcher is attempting to find current status of law, how well it is administered for justice and forgery case can identified very well or not.
Objective
• To understand concept of forgery and its criminal liability
• To find out current status of forgery and how well law is been administered for justice in India.
• To find out whether state is effective or not in finding forgery cases
Hypothesis
Researcher has assumed that in India, forgery is not seen as crime and does not have any criminal liability.
Research Methodology
The present research study is mainly a doctrinal and analytical. Keeping this in view, the researcher has gone through different books, journals, Web references, E-journal, reports etc.
The relevant material is collected from the secondary sources. Materials and information are collected both legal sources like books.
Scope of the study
The research is a doctrinal research. The researcher here would like to study though the judicial viewpoints by its decision given in various cases. The researcher has tried to analysis the topic by studying various authors, experts, cases of The Indian Apex Court and High courts, articles, etc. The researcher has strictly followed the boundary and has studied only with reference to Indian authors, experts, cases, etc
History of Forgery
Ever since the time of invention of writing, the offence of forgery was also in existence. In Roman law, it was enacted by lex corenelia de falsis, that a person who falsely writes, seals, publicly reads, or foists in a forged will or other document or makes, cuts, moulds, a spurious seal wilfully and maliciously should be punished – if a freeman with deportation, and if a slave, with death. Removal of inscription of tombs was also severely punished in Rome.
The law of forgery may have originated with an early Roman law (c. 80 B.C.) that prohibited falsification of documents describing the passing on of land to heirs. The precise scope of what was considered forgery at common law is not universally agreed upon, but a statute passed in the time of Queen Elizabeth I (An Act against forgers of false deeds and writings) prohibited forgery of publicly recorded, officially sealed documents with the intent to affect the title to land, as well as the knowing use of such documents as evidence in court. In the first major expansion of the law's coverage, a 1726 decision declared that a false endorsement on an unsealed private document was indictable both under the Elizabethan statute and at common law . Writing only half a century later, William Blackstone was able to declare, after referring to several contemporary statutes, that "there is now hardly a case possible to be conceived wherein forgery, that tends to defraud, whether in the name of a real or fictitious person, is not made a capital crime". Blackstone defined common law forgery, which he also called crimen falsi, as "the fraudulent making or altering of writing to the prejudice of another man's right." Pillory, fines, and imprisonment were the penalties in those rare cases that were not subject to capital punishment.
Forgery under English Law
I n English Common Law, Blackstone refers to such offences, especially the forging of the seals of state which was treated as one form of treason. In modern English common law “forgery is the making of a false instrument with intent to deceive” However with the promulgation of the Forgery Act 1913, Forgery became a statutory defined offence. Section 1(10) defines forgery as “making a false document in order that it may be used as genuine”. It defines the basic concept, but offences are created by other section which impose penalties ranging from two years to imprisonment of life, depending on the document forged and the intend with which it was forged.
Banking Fraud
Fraud is defined as "any behaviour by which one person intends to gain a dishonest advantage over another". In other words , fraud is an act or omission which is intended to cause wrongful gain to one person and wrongful loss to the other, either by way of concealment of facts or otherwise.
Losses sustained by banks as a result of frauds exceed the losses due to robbery, dacoity, burglary and theft-all put together. Unauthorized credit facilities are extended for illegal gratification such as case credit allowed against pledge of goods, hypothecation of goods against bills or against book debts. Common modus operandi are, pledging of spurious goods, inletting the value of goods, hypothecating goods to more than one bank, fraudulent removal of goods with the knowledge and connivance of in negligence of bank staff, pledging of goods belonging to a third party. Goods hypothecated to a bank are found to contain obsolete stocks packed in between goods stocks and case of shortage in weight is not uncommon.