JUDGMENT Holmwood and Sharfuddin, JJ. - This is an appeal from the judgment and sentence passed by the District comparison having been made without any objection by the party affected by it, the signature on the vakalainama, which was used for comparison, must have been in fact admitted. 2. But on a finding that this was not so, the decision of the Lower Appellate Court was reversed, and the Judges said that they considered, according to their experience, that a comparison of signature is a mode of ascertaining the truth which ought to be used with very great care and caution. 3. It is evident that this is doubly so in a criminal case where a large quantity of apparently very different handwriting is under comparison. 4. The assumption here is that a note-book found in the accused's possession is entirely in his handwriting. Now, there is internal evidence in the book itself that it is not, and the expert was not even asked to say whether all the writing in this book was by the same hand. 5. Nor was he asked to make any comparison in open Court with proved or admitted handwriting which was then available. 6. It is claimed by learned Counsel for the Crown that the comparison made by the expert months before, when the documents were first discovered and when nobody knew whether they were in the same hand or not, is a strong proof of his impartiality, and should give greater weight to his evidence. 7. But unfortunately when there is no comparison in open Court before the accused with documents proved or admitted to be in his handwriting, such evidence is inadmissible, and having regard to the minute and scientific investigations which are now in practice made by handwriting experts by means of photographic enlargements and detailed measurements made out of Court, we must emphasize the necessity for strictly complying with the his as to what has to be done in the Court itself. These preliminary enquiries and scientific researches may be very necessary and very desirable, but they cannot be allowed to supersede or in any way take the place of comparison in open Court with proved or admitted writings which alone renders the expert's testimony admissible. These preliminary enquiries and scientific researches may be very necessary and very desirable, but they cannot be allowed to supersede or in any way take the place of comparison in open Court with proved or admitted writings which alone renders the expert's testimony admissible. To justify our finding on this point, which is, of course, based on wholly independent legal considerations, we may remark that in this case a very remarkable-instance of the danger of relying on inspection maim out of Court has come to our notice. 8. There is an address copied into the accused's note-book at page 73 in which the word "Rungpore" twice occurs. This has been greatly relied upon by the expert for comparison with the same word occurring on the envelope, Ex. 2, in which the incriminating document was sent. Now, not only is this entry wholly unproved, but it appears to us to be an interpolation in the note-book made in a different handwriting to the rest of the page, and the last curve of the "R" is of a wholly different character to that on the envelope, being curved in and rounded instead of outwards, as we have written it above and as it appears on the envelope. On the other hand, the unusually elongated tail of the "g" and the unusually short shaft of the "p" seem to be laboriously imitated in the note-book from the writing on the envelope, and it is obvious that it would be quite possible to put matters before the expert in a private examination which were not in the original document at all, and so deceive him into giving evidence in all good faith upon writing which really had no connection with the case. We do not say that this is so in this particular case, but the suspicion an entry such as this in the notebook prima facie arouses, illustrates the danger of substituting that which is not evidence, namely, the expert's private examination of the documents out of Court, for that which the law has, under the safeguards of extreme care and caution, made admissible as evidence on condition that the examination is made in open Court in the presence of the party affected. 9. It is clear that on this ground the finding that the accused either wrote, or forwarded by post, the incriminating document falls to the ground. 9. It is clear that on this ground the finding that the accused either wrote, or forwarded by post, the incriminating document falls to the ground. That he was in possession of highly seditious literature and that no habitually sent for, purchased and read such literature is certain, and may give rise to a strong suspicion that he was engaged in disseminating such pernicious writings among his friends and" associates. But he is only one of a secret society in the village of Bera which has been deposed to by the District Superintendent of Police, and the publication of this particular missive has not been brought home to him. 10. Whether he could have been arraigned u/s 108 of the Criminal Procedure Code or u/s 153A of the Indian Penal Code, it is not for us to enquire. But we have to consider whether or not there should be a re-trial in this cage, and we think that, having regard to the fact that the accused has been eight and-a-half months in jail as an under-trial prisoner and as a convict combined, his conduct, even if it could be shown to be criminal, has been amply punished, and we may hope that he will realise the folly and wickedness of tampering with sedition, and, as he is young enough to reform and become a useful member of society, that this will be a sufficient warning to him for the future, there is no need for a retrial. We set aside the conviction and sentence, and order the acquittal and release of the accused.