Apt to seek govt lab opinion on handwriting in legal cases: High Court

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, September 21

In a significant legal development, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has emphasised the pivotal role of government laboratories in verifying signatures and handwriting in legal proceedings, including cheque bounce cases. The ruling by Justice Jasjit Singh Bedi pertains to a case where the authenticity of signatures on a cheque came under scrutiny.

“One of the methods of proving the signatures of a person is by examining by a handwriting expert and to ensure fairness it would always be appropriate to seek an opinion from a government laboratory since private experts would ordinarily given opinion/report in favour of the party engaging him/calling him as a witness,” Justice Bedi asserted in a decision having far-reaching implications for the fairness and transparency of legal proceedings involving handwriting experts.

In the case at hand, the trial court had initially allowed the accused/respondent to engage a private handwriting and fingerprint expert to examine the disputed signatures on the cheque in question. However, Justice Bedi noted that the trial court missed the opportunity to send the signatures to a government laboratory for a more objective analysis.

Upon challenging the initial court order, the petitioner/complainant secured a subsequent order dated February 16, which allowed them to request the trial court to involve a government-appointed handwriting expert or Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) for the examination of the cheque. But the trial court rejected the request, arguing that a private expert had already examined the cheque.

Justice Bedi deemed this rejection erroneous, asserting that the primary goal of any trial “is to seek the unvarnished truth and ensure justice for all parties involved”. Before parting, Justice Bedi allowed the petitioner’s request for government laboratory examination and directed the trial court to conclude the proceedings as expeditiously as possible, given that the complaint dated back to 2017.