The petitioner herein is an accused in S.C.No.285 of 2005 on the file of the learned Principle Sessions Judge, Vellore, facing trial for the offences under Sections 376, 306, 506 (ii) I.P.C. read with Section 4-B of Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Woman (Amended) Act, 39 of 2002. The petitioner herein filed an application before the Trial Court under Section 233 (3) of Cr.P.C. read with Section 45 of Indian Evidence Act seeking to send Exs.P.1 and P.3 to Andhra Pradesh Forensic Science Laboratory, Hyderabad for comparison with admitted signatures of the deceased in this case and obtain the opinion and report. The said petition was dismissed by the Trial Court. Aggrieved by the said order, the petitioner has preferred this revision.
2. The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that Ex.P.1-the alleged suicide note and Ex.P.3-admitted inland letter said to have been written by the deceased were compared by P.W.17-hand writing expert and he had given opinion stating that both are written by same person. P.W.17, who is examined as a witness by the prosecution has stated in his evidence that he did not know the language of Telugu. But the documents Exs.P.1 and P.3 were written in Telugu. Only in the said circumstance, for a proper opinion, the petitioner had filed the application to compare Exs.P.1 and P.3 by an hand writing expert, who knows Telugu.
3. The learned Government Advocate (Criminal Side) submits that P.W.17-handwriting expert has already compared the documents Exs.P.1 and P.3 and he had given a definite opinion and P.W.17 was also subjected to cross-examination by the defence. During the cross examination, the learned Government Advocate (Criminal Side) also stated that the reasons for the opinion also had been given by the expert and the reasoning sheet has also been marked as Ex.P.26 series.
4. This Court considered the submissions made by both parties and perused the materials available on record.
5. Though Exs.P.1 and P.3 prima facie appears to be written by same person, according to the learned counsel, some of the portions in Ex.P.3 are different from each other. P.W.17 also admitted in the cross-examination that he did not know how many letters were there in Telugu and this is the first document in Telugu that he had examined and given opinion. This Court feels that when the handwriting expert is not well versed in the language found mentioned in the documents, it would be better for both the prosecution and defence that the documents are compared by an hand writing expert who knows the said language. Basically, the evidence of an handwriting expert would have a very little evidentiary value because the science of judging handwriting by comparison is not very precise. When that being so, the comparison of the writings by an handwriting expert who did not know that language would decrease the value of evidence.
6. In the above circumstances, this Court feels that the documents Ex.P.1 and P.3 may be sent for getting opinion from the handwriting expert who knows Telugu language.
7. In the said circumstance, order passed by the learned Principal Sessions Judge, Vellore in Crl.M.P.3787 of 2009 is set aside and the learned Principal Sessions Judge, Vellore is directed to send the documents Exs.P.1 and P.3 to be compared by any handwriting expert who knows Telugu language.
T.SUDANTHIRAM, J.
jrl/va
8. With the above direction, the criminal revision is allowed. Consequently, the connected miscellaneous petition is closed.