IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NOS. 2295-2296 OF 2010
Adambhai Sulemanbhai Ajmeri & Ors. …Appellants
Versus
State of Gujarat ...Respondent
WITH
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 45 OF 2011
Dated;May 16, 2014
V.GOPALA GOWDA, J.
Answer to point no. 5
104. The learned senior counsel on behalf of the
prosecution, Mr. Ranjit Kumar contended that the two
Urdu letters allegedly recovered from the pockets of
the trousers of the fidayeens had been written by A-4,
as he had admitted the same in his confessional
statement as under:
“…..On the next day night Aiyub came at my
office and he stated that persons come by
taking goods (arms). Tomorrow they three will
come here at the time of noon’s prayer here, at
that time I and both fidayins will have to go
to Akshardham separately, therfore Adam be
called at noon time before Johar’s prayer with
rickshaw to take me, and keep ready by writing
two chits in Urdu to the effect that this
massacre is committed as a revenge of torture
beyond limit committed on Muslims, and as
writer of that chit name of group taking
revenge on Gujarat i.e. “tehrik-e-qisas
Gujarat” be written……
…On that night at late hours, in my office of
Zankar sound by closing shutter, I and Maulvi
Abdulla made discussion and I wrote two chits
in Urdu in my handwriting wherein we wrote that
“violence on Muslims in Gujarat due to which
feeling of revenge is spread in Muslims, now
blood of Hindus, police will come out and now
Shiv Sena, VHP and temple will be burnt and due
to that Muslims will get relief and called upon
all Muslims to take revenge by shaking
shoulders, and if you want to live, live with
pride and if you want to die, then die with
pride. This gift of massacre is for Advani and
Modi….by saying to give both these chits and
pen to fidayins on next day, I had given it to
Maulvi Abdullah…
……we performed two rakat fazal namaz, and as I
called upon both fidayins to state their real
names to make prayer for success of massacre,
their safety and if they are died then they are
going to heaven, doctor-2 stated his real name
as Hafiz Yasir res. Lahore, Pakistan and
Doctor-3 (Ashraf) stated his real name as
Mohammed Faruk residence Ravalpindi, Pakistan
and for their prayer we all five persons
performed two rakat nafal namaz and gave hug to
each other. At that time Maulvi Abdullah had
given one chit each to the fidayin written by
me in Urdu yesterday as per my instruction and
if in future chits are caught to show that
chits are written by fidayins he had also given
them pen.
During this in the encounter with armed forces,
they both terrorists are also killed and one
chit each having one kind of urdu writing have
been found from pockets of both. I had seen
photographs of those chits and photographs of
both the terrorists killed afterwards in T.V
and newspapers. I identified that those chits
are same which I and Maulvi Abdullah made
discussion and both terrorists who died were
doctor-1 and doctor-2.”
(translation extracted from the Additional
documents submitted on behalf of the State of
Therefore, by placing reliance upon the confessional
statement of A-4, read with the contents of the
letters mentioned above and the opinion of the hand
writing expert,Jagdish Bhai(PW-89) the learned counsel
on behalf of the prosecution contended that the
alleged letters had been written by A-4.
105. The learned counsel for the accused persons have
contended that the statement under Section 161 of the
CrPC, of the key witness PW-91, Maj.Jaydeep Lamba was
not recorded. We have to accept this contention as the
investigating officers have conveniently omitted to
record the statements of witnesses which could have
established beyond reasonable doubt that the letters
were the same ones as discovered from the site of
offence. They tied A-4 to the letters merely based on
his confessional statement whereas the opinions of the
hand writing experts are merely indicative and not
conclusive beyond reasonable doubt. We begin with the
comment made by the translator of the Urdu letters
(PW-121: Ex.657) who had categorically stated that:
“The matter in both the letters was same but
the persons who wrote it are not the same as
per my opinion”.
(translation extracted from the Additional
documents submitted on behalf of the
But considering the fact that he was not a hand
writing expert, we shall refer to the statement of the
evidence of the hand writing expert, Jagdish Bhai (PW-
89: Ex.507) who had assigned the following reasons for
recording his finding in his report that the hand
writing of A-4 matches with the letters allegedly
found from the pockets of the trousers of the
fidayeens:
“Pictorial appearance of all the disputed
specimen and natural writings are similar.
All these writings are written freely with
speed showing natural variation among
themselves.
They agree in the writing habits such as
movements, slants, spacing, relative size and
proportion of characters, line quality,
alignment of characters; manner of
accommodation etc.
They also show similarities in the execution
of various commencing, terminal and connecting
strokes.
………
However, during cross examination by the learned
counsel on behalf of A-2 and A-4 while deposing before
the court, he has stated as under:
“Question: Hand writing science is not a
perfect science.
Answer: It is also not imperfect science. It
can be called developing science.
.....
Question: What basic knowledge of Urdu you
have? Answer: The Urdu language is written from
right to left, the said fact as well as the
fact that the complete word is written in
combination that initial, medial and final.
Also, wherever there is double pronunciation
like in bachcha, kachcha then letter like
little ‘W’ like English is made. I have studied
‘Kaaf’, ‘Gaaf’, ‘Nukta’, ‘Hamja’, ‘Tasdid’,
‘full- stop, ‘comma’, small S, big SW, vowels
and Sh thereby all words. ...I cannot write
Urdu. I cannot read Urdu language, But by
taking reliance of book, I can read it.
It is true reason that there is no mention
about the discussion of the reasons given by me
with the Expert of Hyderabad. It is true that
in the reasons given by me, there is no
signature of any examiner except for me. It is
true that in my reasons, general
characteristics, which are given, in the said,
details like measurements have not been
mentioned. It is true that the sample documents
were compared mutually has not been mentioned
in my reasons. It is true that the specimen and
natural hand writings were compared with each
other, but it is not written in my reasons. It
is true that I have written natural variations
in my reasons, but I have not mentioned details
about what these variations are.”
(translation extracted from the Additional
documents submitted on behalf of the
On cross examination by the Judge of the Special Court
(POTA) however, he was asked whether the hand writing
expert can also give opinion on the language which is
not known to him. To this, he answered that:
“It is necessary to have basic knowledge of the
concerned language. Even many signatures are
written illegibly in monogramatic formation,
even then also by examining different
characteristics of hand writing, one can come
to the conclusion from the same.”
(translation extracted from the Additional
documents submitted on behalf of the
Further, he was asked, if the person who analyses such
a document can read or write the language of the
document and whether the opinion given by such a
person can be called more reliable than the opinion
given by the person who does not know to read or write
the language, he answered:
“I don’t agree that the opinion can be called
more reliable, but I can just say that the
knower of the language can give reasons in more
details. The witness states on his own that
apart from me, two other experts of Hyderabad
were taken, and they knew Urdu language better
than me.”
(translation extracted from the Additional
documents submitted on behalf of the
The hand writing expert had stated that he cannot read
or write the Urdu language. He can read Urdu language
only with the aid of a book.
106. We state that considering the seriousness of this
case and the gravity of the offences, it was the duty
of the handwriting expert to seek opinion of other
experts which he claimed to have done. PW-89 stated
that he requested the Director of FSL to seek the
service of the Central Government Laboratory, and the
photocopies of the documents were sent to the
Government Examiner of Questioned Documents(in short
‘GEQD’), Ministry of Home Affairs, Hyderabad for the
preliminary examination. Accordingly, Assistant
Government Examiner, Shri A.K Singh and Shri R.K Jain,
the senior most GEQD of the Central government had
arrived at the FSL of Gujarat. It was further stated
by PW-89 that the officers from Hyderabad had worked
independently and prepared their opinion. Accordingly,
PW-89 formed a final opinion based upon the opinion of
the aforesaid officers (Ex.511). The senior most
officer, Mr. R.K Jain, sent certificate via fax on
14.09.2003 in which he had stated that he was in
consent with the opinion of PW-89. However, objection
was raised by the counsel for the accused persons at
the Special Court (POTA) for taking this certificate
on record, since this document of certificate was
never given to the defence in the chargesheet papers,
or at any time thereafter. Moreover, the prosecution
had also submitted that even they were unaware of the
existence of this document, and this knowledge had
come before them only during the course of recording
of the deposition of PW-89 before the Special Court
(POTA). Therefore, the certificate was taken on record
with the objection of the defence.
107. After perusing the above mentioned evidence on
record, we decipher that the prosecution had contended
that the Urdu letters (Ex.658) were written by A-4 by
only placing reliance upon the opinion of the
handwriting expert, PW-89. However, the certificate of
the seniormost official of FSL, Hyderabad was not
admitted on record till a much later stage, after the
charge sheet was prepared and PW-89 gave his statement
before the court. It was at this stage that his
evidence was admitted with protest from the defence.
PW-89 in his evidence had stated that he has basic
knowledge of Urdu and cannot differentiate between
Urdu, Arabic and Persian. He further stated that the
opinion of handwriting experts is not conclusive.
Therefore, we hold that the prosecution had failed to
establish beyond reasonable doubt that the Urdu
letters (Ex.658) were written by A-4. Accordingly, we
answer this point in favour of the appellants.
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