JUDGMENT Anna Chandy, J. 1. The appellant R. K. Moorthy stands' convicted by the learned Sessions Judge of Trivandrum under sections 409, 467, 471 and 477-A of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to a concurrent term of imprisonment for two years and also to pay a fine totalling Rs. 200. The case against him was that he, while working as the Sub-Postmaster at the Thirumala Post Office, misappropriated a sum of Rs. 1,749 lying to the credit of a Savings Bank Account at the Post Office. 2. On 16th January 1964 P.W. 2 G. Krishnan Nair holder of Savings Bank Account No. T.M.L. 1010470 at Thirumala Post Office put in an application to withdraw a sum of Rs. 200 from his account. He handed over the withdrawal application Ex. P-l 0 and his pass book Ex. P-4 which showed a credit balance of Rs. 1,800 to P.W. 5 the Savings Bank Clerk. After due formalities the application was allowed by P.W. 3 the Sub-Postmaster and the sum Rs.200 together with the pass book duly written up was given back to the depositor. The next day as per Postal Rules, a list of transactions in the Savings Bank Department was sent to the G.P.O., Trivandrum. When these transactions came to be posted in S.B. Ledger at the G.P.O. it was found that the balance to the credit of P.W. 2 was only Rs. 50. P.W. 3 the Sub-Postmaster at Thirumala was contacted over the phone and it came to light that the balance according to the records at the Branch Office was Rs. 1,800 and not Rs. 50 as at the G.P.O. The ensuing investigation revealed that on 21st October 1963 the accused who was then Sub-Postmaster at Thirumala forged Ex. P-2 an application form for withdrawing Rs. 1,749 purporting to have been made by P.W. 2 and misappropriated the amount. It was also seen that he had sent to |the G.P.O. a list of transactions in the S.B. account with a false entry regarding the withdrawal and also made the necessary corrections in Ex. P-6 the S.B. Journal of the post office. On 9th January 1964 the accused gave a written confession of his defalcation to P.W. 10 the Superintendent of Post Offices who was investigating the crime. P-6 the S.B. Journal of the post office. On 9th January 1964 the accused gave a written confession of his defalcation to P.W. 10 the Superintendent of Post Offices who was investigating the crime. On 10th January 1964 P.W. 1 Inspector of Post Offices informed the police who after due investigation charge-sheeted the accused on 5th May 1964. 3. The accused pleads not guilty. According to him he committed neither forgery nor misappropriation but was forced to give the confession by his superior officers who threatened to call in the police. 4. The evidence against the accused consists of the testimony of those who worked with him that the relevant entries are in his handwriting and the confessions he is alleged to have made to P.W. 2 the depositor and P.W. 10 the Superintendent of Post Offices. Before dealing with these items in detail I would like to comment on what I consider to be certain significant defects in the prosecution evidence. 5. In the first place there is no formal evidence that on the day the misappropriation is alleged to have taken place there was sufficient sum of money in the post office to permit such embezzlement or that on the day the crime was detected there was a corresponding discrepancy in the cash balance. Though a number of postal employees have been examined in the case none of them has stated in so many words that on 21st October 1963 there was, in the safe at the Thirumala Post Office, a sum of money sufficient to cover a withdrawal of Rs. 1,749. Nor is there any evidence to show that when the crime was detected there was a shortage of Rs. 1,749 in the cash balance to show that the amount shown in the withdrawal slip had in fact been withdrawn. The court is asked to presume that in a post office the cash balance could never have been so low as not to permit the withdrawal of a thousand or two and also to presume that the postal authorities would not have gone in for all this trouble if indeed there was no defalcation. Instead of leaving it to the court to presume part of the corpus delecti it would have been better for the prosecution to have adduced evidence on this point. 6. Instead of leaving it to the court to presume part of the corpus delecti it would have been better for the prosecution to have adduced evidence on this point. 6. The court is also left in the dark regarding the procedure obtaining at the post office as regards the custody and handling of cash. It would appear from the evidence of P.W. 3 the present Postmaster at Thirumala that the Postmaster and senior clerk have joint custody and that each of them has a key to the safe. However there is nothing on record to show whether the two keys were duplicates so that each man could have opened the safe independently of the other or whether the use of both the keys was necessary before the safe could be opened. We also do not know whether the safe was locked after each deposit of cash from it or whether it was opened in the morning to be closed only at the end of the transactions for the day. It is in evidence that it is the Savings Bank Clerk who hands out the money to the account holders. This would seem to indicate that the Savings Bank Clerk also had access to the safe. It would be relevant to note here that admittedly the withdrawal of Rs. 200 under Ex. P-10 was done without P.W. 3 affixing his signature on the warrant of payment to signify that the payment was authorised by the Postmaster. This in turn would indicate that the Savings Bank Clerk could lay his hands on the money without the knowledge of the Postmaster. On days when withdrawals exceeded deposits as for instance on 22nd October 1963, the day after the occurrence, when the withdrawals totalled Rs. 3,048.70 with no deposits (vide Ex. P-6 S.B. Journal, page 23) the money must necessarily have come from the safe. In this state of evidence there cannot be any positive finding that the accused who had one key to the safe could have removed any money from it without the knowledge of the senior clerk the holder of the other key or that if the procedure adopted in the office permitted a clandestine removal of money by the accused such an opportunity was not shared by the Senior Clerk and the Savings Bank Clerk. 7. 7. The prosecution has also made no attempt to explain the long delay in detecting the crime which in the circumstances of this case is of some importance. According to the prosecution the accused forged Ex. P-2 withdrawal slip, made an entry in Ex. P-6 S.B. Journal, corrected the total of the day's transactions in the journal and sent Ex. P-3 list of transactions to the G.P.O. It is Strange that the false entries in the S.B. Journal were not noticed by anyone including the Savings Bank Clerk who maintains the book. Admittedly all the entries in the journal for 21st October 1963 except the alleged forgeries and all the entries for the succeeding day are in the handwriting of the Savings Bank Clerk P. W. 5. It is strange that P.W. 5 at least when he opened the next day's account about half an inch below the total of the previous day failed to notice that the figure 560 that, he had written down had been scored off and the figure 2,310 substituted. However P.W. 5 would have it that he noticed the correction only after the investigation started. The learned State Prosecutor sought to get over this improbability by suggesting that the accused must have very cleverly refrained from making any entry in the journal till a few days after the misappropriation so as to obviate the risk of detection by the Savings Bank Clerk. This cannot be accepted for the obvious reason that if the total had not been corrected on 21st August 1963 itself there would have been a discrepancy in cash balance of the office when it was checked with the accounts at the end of the day. P.W - 4 a clerk in the post office states that each day cash balance will be checked with the accounts but he does not describe how it is done. The procedure must have been to calculate what the cash balance should be by taking into consideration the opening balance and the totals of such cash transactions as Savings Bank, Money Order, Stamps, etc. It is also certain that there must have been a book for this purpose. However this book has not been produced nor is there any evidence to show who was responsible for maintaining it. It is also certain that there must have been a book for this purpose. However this book has not been produced nor is there any evidence to show who was responsible for maintaining it. It will not be out of place to note here that though P.W. 5 has stated that none of the entries in the journal connected , with Ex. P-2 withdrawal are in his handwriting there appears in the first line on page 23 of Ex. P-6 journal where the amount of Ex. P-2 withdrawal has been brought forward from the previous page an initial in the column " initials of the S.B. Clerk after each transaction " which bear a marked similarity with the admitted initials of P.W. 5 on the same page. Under these circumstances the prosecution's failure to explain the delay in detecting the crime cannot be dismissed as of no significance. 8. As noted earlier the main evidence against the accused consists of the testimony of his co-workers that the entries connected with Ex. P-2 withdrawal are in the , accused's handwriting. The prosecution has not thought it fit to examine a handwriting expert but depends solely on the evidence of postal employees. Their testimony on this point lacks credibility. P.W. 1 the Inspector of Post Offices states that he is familiar with the accused's handwriting. However it would appear that his opportunity to get acquainted with the accused's handwriting was rather limited. P.W. 1 admits that he came to Trivandrum only on 5th September 1963 and was there up to 10th February 1964 and had no occasion at all to work with the accused. Though he says that he inspected the accused's post office four or five times during this period, cross-examination has brought out that on none of these occasions had he made a record of his visit in the book kept for the purpose at the Thirumala Post Office. P.W. 3 the present Postmaster at Thirumala states that he knows the handwriting of the accused as he had seen the latter writing when they were both clerks at the Postal Superintendent's Office at Trivandrum. However this claim loses much of its credibility when viewed in the light of the witnesse inability to recall even the period during which he and the accused worked together. However this claim loses much of its credibility when viewed in the light of the witnesse inability to recall even the period during which he and the accused worked together. His evidence of identification loses its value when we see that he had no recent opportunities of noticing the accused's handwriting. Admittedly after 1960 he had no occasion to work with the accused. He came back to Trivandrum only on 12th September 1963 and was on leave till 28th October 1963. Similarly P.W. 5's statement that all the false entries are in the accused's handwriting stands revealed as undependable when it is seen even on a casual observation that at least some of these entries bear no resemblance whatever to the accused's admitted handwriting. Ex. P-2 withdrawal application contains five groups of writing, viz., (i) withdrawal application which contains the words One thousand seven Hundred and forty-nine and the signature reading G. Krishnan Nair (ii) receipt for payment consisting of the same words and signature as in the application, (iii) a certificate of identification (iii) reading " certified that the applicant is personally known to me and he has signed in my presence" with the signature of one A. L. Hariharan, (iv) warrant of payment containing the amount in words and the signature of the Postmaster and (v) an entry in red ink reading ' Spl. fee of Re. one credited under U.C.R. on 21st October 1963 with the Postmaster's signature. Of these the last item is admittedly in the accused's handwriting. It is interesting to note that all these items are in bold and free flowing handwriting and there are no signs of any hesitation in the signatures. Even at a glance it is quite obvious that both the application and withdrawal i.e., items 1 and 2 and signatures in them are written by the same hand and it is equally obvious that they bear no similarity to the admitted handwriting of the accused in item 5. Similarly the certificate of identification (item 3) is in a handwriting different from that of items 1 and 2 as also item 5. It is also not easy to identify the writing in Ex. P-6 S.B. Journal. Similarly the certificate of identification (item 3) is in a handwriting different from that of items 1 and 2 as also item 5. It is also not easy to identify the writing in Ex. P-6 S.B. Journal. Apart from figures the entry contains only the name G. Krishnan Nair and some indecipherable words in the remarks column beginning ' Special fee for ' It appears to me that the handwriting in this entry bears little resemblance to the admitted handwriting of the accused in item 5 of Ex. P-2. In fact to the untrained eye, the only relevant item that appears to be in the accused's handwriting is Ex. P-3 the ' list of transactions ' sent to the G.P.O. This of course would constitute a suspicious circumstance in that it was the duty of the Savings Bank Clerk to write this list and not the Postmaster. There is also the fact that the relevant entry in Ex. P-6 S.B. Journal is not in the handwriting of the S.B. Clerk in which it ordinarily should have been. Suspicious though these circumstances are, they are clearly inadequate to bring home the guilt. 9. In this connection I am constrained to remark that the prosecution's failure to examine a handwriting expert was a mistake. It might well be that the accused had attempted and succeeded in disguising his writing in a way that most of these items appear to have been written by different persons. 10. The following quotations incorporated in the book " A study in handwriting " by P. Ramanatha Iyer and N. S. Ranganatha Iyer on pages 160, 164 and 165 point to the danger of relying on non-expert opinion evidence alone without the aid of expert opinion : " Handwriting, even if artificial, is to some extent a reflex of the nervous organization of the writer. There is a distinctive characteristic which, being the reflex of the nervous organization, is more or less independent of the writer's will and shows in his handwriting ; " and the aid of one specially trained in discovering the presence and absence of these characteristics and similarities would have been of considerable help to the court in taking a decision as to the identity of the handwriting. "In the case of the non-expert, the characteristics of the standard are necessarily indistinct, shadowy, and uncertain, while they show out to the expert in all distinctness of visible characters. In the latter tangible realities are compared; in the former a visible reality is compared with an invisible, intangible impression in the mind. And it is the prevailing opinion of Judges that the non-expert's recollection from a former comparison or from a former notice of writings, where there may have been no special reason for making a critical examination, is inferior in weight to the testimony of a qualified expert after recent and careful scrutiny. " The evidence of the handwriting adduced in this case is so unsatisfactory that it is absolutely unsafe to rely on it as the basis of a verdict which will subject the accused to severe punishment and operate as a perpetual brand of infamy of his character. 11. As for the confessions both have been retracted by the accused. According to him he never made any admission to P.W.2 and the written confession to P.W- 10 was not voluntary. P.W. 2 the account holder gives evidence that on 8th January 1964 the accused came to his house and confessed his guilt and requested his help to avoid trouble. The accused has denied this and the witness cannot be considered entirely disinterested. His money had not been returned by the postal authorities in spite of his requests and he could very well have been under the impression that he stood to lose the amount unless someone is convicted for misappropriating it. As for the written confession the accused maintains that it was obtained from him by the threat to call in the police. The confession itself contains a plea for mercy from the postal authorities and the accused's allegation that the police were phoned up though denied, cannot be disregarded as we see that P.W.1 the Inspector of Post Offices has clearly admitted that he was instructed by P.W. 10 in the afternoon of 9th January 1964 to contact the police (the confession was recorded at 6 p.m. on 9th January 1964). These circumstances would detract much from the voluntariness of the confession. Prudence demands that retracted confessions are to be acted upon only if corroborated. These circumstances would detract much from the voluntariness of the confession. Prudence demands that retracted confessions are to be acted upon only if corroborated. In this case where the confession is recorded by an officer in the course of investigating the crime with none of the safeguards attendant on the recording of a judicial confession the need for corroboration is even more and as we have seen the evidence available is clearly inadequate. The confession contains a statement that the accused was compelled to misappropriate the amount because," he was hard-pressed by some creditors who approached the court for an attachment warrant and also a civil warrant". The prosecution could well have pursued the matter and led evidence as to how the money was utilised. That would also have afforded useful indication as to the truth and voluntariness of the confession. When more than one postal employee could have been involved; the evidence of the co-employees requires corroboration of an irreproachable nature which is sadly lacking in this case. 12. The prosecution has merely succeeded in creating a strong suspicion against the accused but has failed to prove any facts which would sustain conviction. I would therefore give the accused the benefit of doubt. The appeal is allowed and the conviction and sentence are therefore set aside. The, fine if realised will be reminded to the accused.