P L D 1985 Lahore 597_ (PLP)

3. The necessary detail of said cheques is as below: Cheque No.??? Amount?????????? Date of payment 512672?????????? 4,800? 07-09-77 512673?????????? 7,500? 08-09-77 512674?????????? 9,000? 12-09-77 512675?????????? 10,000 ?????????? 24-09-77 Muhammad Aslam Khan had been issued cheque book, having blank cheques No. 033861 to 033870. Obviously, therefore, the above cheques were not from the cheque book of Muhammad Aslam Khan. On enquiry, they were found to belong to the cheque book issued to minor Mirza Noman Beg in whose name Account No. 3932 had been opened through her mother Bushra who had stated before the police that at the time of withdrawal of the sum of Rs. 500 from the said account, she left the said cheque book somewhere in the bank. It is stated that she did not care to search for the said cheque book as little money was left in the bank in her son's account.

4. No cheque was used by Muhammad Aslam Khan from the cheque book issued to him. However, on bank record, there was found a cheque book requisition slip (known as Form ?A') prescribed application for supply of a new cheque book, containing two forged signatures of Muhammad Aslam Khan on it on the basis of which cheque book containing cheques from 512671-512680 was shown to have been issued to the said account holder. The said signatures of Muhammad Aslam Khan on the said requisition slip did not stand verified by any officer by appending his signature thereto and affixing on it a stamp of verification. There was no signature of any officer on the said slip in respect of his having issued the said new cheque book. The said requisition slip appears to have been smuggled into the bank record and shows that offence could not have been committed without active collaboration of some employee of the bank. The handwriting expert has given opinion that signature of Muhammad Aslam Khan account bolder on all the four cheques are forged. The Investigating Officer took into possession the said requisition slip but he does not appear from the police file to have required the complainant Manager then to produce specimen signature card of Muhammad Aslam Khan with which the officers, passing the cheques were supposed to compare the signatures of the drawer on the cheques received. Allah Rakha, the present Manager of the branch, has stated before me that the said specimen signature card is not available in the bank record.

5. In this case, Cheques Nos. 512672, 512674 and 512675 are stated to be signed by the two accused officers in token of their having passed these cheques while Cheque No. 512673 is stated 'to have been passed by the accused Malik Talib Hussain and another officer Mirza Naseer Beg. The accused-petitioner had earlier filed an application for pre-arrest bail in which they had admitted that they had passed these cheques. Therefore, the admitted position is that these cheques were cancelled (passed as fit for payment) by accused-petitioner Riaz Mahmood Khawaja and Malik Talib Hussain respectively as 11nd and IIIrd officers and, thereafter, money was paid by the cashier from the counter in each case.

6. I have seen the said four cheques from the record of the Investigating Officer. On the top right corner of Cheque No. 512672, in the space where the Manager writes the number of account on each blank cheque at the time of issuing cheque hook, blue ink has been splashed completely eclipsing from view the original number of the account written there and on the top of the same, 1697 is written afresh as the account number. On the top right corner of cheque No. 512673, the account number written earlier stands defaced by rubbing blue ink over it and underneath it fresh Account No. 1697 is written. At the same space in Cheque No. 512674 and 512673, the previous account number written already is overwritten with new Account No. 1697. The overwriting is manifest and visible to the naked eye. The above extremely suspicious circumstances were sufficient to raise suspicion in the mind of the accused-petitioners regarding the genuineness of the said account number and yet they passed the said four cheques. It appears to me, therefore, at this stage on the above evidence, that the accused petitioners would not have passed the said cheques unless they were in collusion with the untraced culprit who had forged the said cheques and had got the payment of these cheques from the counter.

7. Passing of as many as four cheques in that state, one after the other, within a short period of about fourteen days, appears to be another piece of circumstantial evidence prima facie connecting the petitioners with the offences committed in this case. If a single cheque had been passed in spite of that condition, it could have been considered a stray incident of inadvertent mistake on their part in bona fide discharge of their ,duty but here are, as already stated, four cheques with extremely sensational interpolations in the account number of all of .them having been passed by them one after the other within the small span of about two weeks only without any objection having been raised by them on that score. Therefore, passing of these four cheques by the accused officers appears, at this stage, to exclude the possibility of inadvertent mistake or even mere negligence on the part of the accused officers and prima facie shows design and deliberation on their part.

8. In this context, learned counsel for the accused submits that fresh account numbers written on the said cheques were initialled by the Manager, Rashid Ahmad, and therefore, the accused-petitioners were justified in passing the said cbeques without entertaining any doubt regarding the forged nature of the cheques. I have considered this argument too but find it difficult to accept it, as, on scrutinizing the said cheques with the help of the complainant Manager, it has appeared to me that there is no initial of any officer on fresh account number on Cheque No. 512672 and on looking into the police record it has appeared to me that there is nothing in it to show that said initials on three other cheques were of the Manager, Rashid Ahmad. As recorded in para. 2 of zimni No. 9 of 20-10-1984, Manager Rashid Ahmad had impliedly denied before the Investigating Officer on the said date that these initials were his. It is for that reason that his writing was sent to the handwriting expert and his report is that no definite opinion can be given whether these initials were of Rashid Ahmad Manager or not. In any way, even if the accused-petitioners thought that these initials were of the Manager, in view of obvious suspicious nature of new account number, the accused-petitioners were duty bound to contact the Manager who was just at hand immediately and enquired from him whether he had written and initialled the new account number. The Manager, Rashid Ahmad, had not stated before the police that the accused had approached and asked him at any time in respect of his having changed the account numbers in the said cheques. It is given in the report of the Deputy Director F. I. A., on the police file, that the accused had not been able to explain why they did not make any enquiry from Rashid Ahmad Manager. The circumstance of the accused-petitioner having passed these cheques, without referring the matter of the said obvious and shocking interpolations in the number of account in all the four cheques to the Manager, affords still another piece of circumstantial evidence against the petitioners.

9. Before passing the cheques, supervision of each cheque has to be done by the officers with reference to the ledger account of the account holder. On the ledger sheet relating to Account No. 1697 of Muhammad Aslam Khan, there is a specific entry in a regular column meant for it of cheque book containing Cheques No. 033861-033870, issued to Muhammad Aslam Khan against regular red ink signature of the officer issuing the said cheque book but there is another entry under it of another Cheque Book No. 512671-512680 (cheque book left by the mother of Mirza Noman Beg in the Bank) without any such signatures against it. The accused. petitioners could prima? facie not have failed to notice that fact in supervision of the said cheques. Furthermore, in the said ledger, there was no entry of cheques or even one cheque from first cheque book having been utilized by Muhammad Aslam Khan for withdrawal of money. In supervision, this too could prima facie not have been missed by the accused-petitioners. The accused officers passed the cheques on the basis of cheques from the other cheque book seeing and knowing that later entry of second cheque book in the ledger was not verified by any officer for its correctness by his. appending his signature to the same and the cheques they were passing were from an authorised cheque book entered on the ledger sheet fraudulently. This piece of evidence too appears to show that the petitioners are connected with the offences committed in this case.

11. It is contended by the learned counsel for the accused that the above evidence only constitutes circumstantial evidence which in his view is not substantive evidence and, therefore, cannot be relied upon at the bail stage. I am afraid, I cannot accept this contention. Circumstantial evidence is also evidence in the case and can be competently looked into by the Court even at the bail stage. The cumulative effect of the above circumstantial evidence, at this stage, appears to me to exclude any reasonable hypothesis of the innocence of the accused.

12. On tentative assessment of the above evidence, at this stage, I am of the prima facie view that the accused-petitioners were in league with the) culprit who had forged the said four cheques and drawn money on the 'm fraudulently from the Branch and were also party, to the use of said forged cheques knowing them to be forged. There is, therefore, reasonable B ground to believe that the accused were guilty off scheduled offences under sections 467/109 and 409/109, P. P. C. Subsection n (6) of section 5 of the Offences in Respect of Banks (Special Courts) Ordinance, 1984, which overrides any other law for the time being in force by virtue of section 12 of the said Ordinance, lays down a clear prohibition against grant of bail to such persons. For the foregoing reasons, I reject this application for post arrest bai I. M. A. K ????????? Petition dismissed,