Petitioner is that he made forged signatures of the complainant on a cheque and issued the said cheque to his co-accused.

 2022 SCMR 821

As per the contents of the crime report, the petitioner and the complainant were maintaining a joint bank account. The allegation against the petitioner is that he made forged signatures of the complainant on a cheque and issued the said cheque to his co-accused. When the cheque was presented to the bank, it returned the same due to insufficient funds and mismatch of the signatures of the complainant. It is the case of the petitioner that the cheque book was in the custody of the complainant; ten cheques from the same cheque book have already been encashed at the behest of the complainant and the petitioner never issued the disputed cheque. On our specific query, we have been informed that no forensic test of the alleged forged signatures of the complainant has been conducted so far to ascertain as to whether the signatures are forged or the real one. The amount for which the cheque was given has not been mentioned in the crime report.

It is an admitted fact that the co-accused of the petitioner has been granted post-arrest bail by the court of competent jurisdiction which remains unchallenged by the complainant. Any order by this Court on any technical ground that the consideration for pre-arrest bail and post-arrest bail are entirely on different footing, would be only limited upto the arrest of the petitioner because of the reason that soon after his arrest he would become entitled for the concession of postarrest bail on the plea of consistency.