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C. Kamalakkannan v. State of Tamil Nadu

Criminal Appeal · 2025 INSC 309Decided 3 Mar 2025
Crl.A. No.-001056-001056 of 2025 (arising out of SLP(Crl.) No. 3044 of 2021)
Justice Vikram Nath · Justice Sandeep Mehta

Background

The appellant was convicted for forgery and cheating in connection with a fabricated MBBS admission marksheet - the original showed a candidate had scored 767 out of 1200 marks, but the forged version submitted for admission showed 1120 out of 1200. The prosecution's case against the appellant rested on an allegation that he had handwritten the postal cover used to send the forged marksheet, a conclusion based on a handwriting expert's opinion. The Trial Court, appellate court, and High Court all upheld his conviction.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court acquitted the appellant, holding that the original postal cover was never produced or formally exhibited as evidence at trial - only a photocopy was relied upon, and even the handwriting expert did not clearly identify the disputed postal cover as the one he examined. Citing its earlier ruling in Murari Lal v. State of M.P. on the cautious, correlative use of handwriting expert opinion, the Court held that since the very document said to bear the appellant's handwriting was never proved to exist as claimed, the expert's opinion on it had no evidentiary value, and the conviction built on that opinion could not stand.

Lesson Learnt

A criminal conviction cannot rest on an expert's opinion about a document that itself was never properly produced and proved in court - the foundational evidence must be established before any expert analysis of it can be relied upon.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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