1. Forgery of Acts by Public Officers
Saving the cases mentioned above, any public officer, or servant who shall, in the exercise of his functions, commit forgery by any false signature, or by the alteration of any act, writing, or signature, or by inserting the name of any supposititious person, or by any writing made or entered in any register or other public act, when already formed or completed, shall, on conviction, be liable to hard labour for a term from two to four years, with or without solitary confinement (Section 187). The three essential elements of this crime are: (a) The status of the agent and the abuse which he makes of his functions (b) The manner of falsification (c) The nature of the document falsified. The subject of this crime can be only a public officer or servant. We have already had occasion to examine the meaning of this expression. It comprises every person who is lawfully entrusted with the carrying out of any act appertaining to the public administration. But the quality of public officer or servant in the agent is not sufficient: it is further necessary that the forgery shall have been committed in the exercise of his functions. Such abuse makes the act more heinous because his position as a public officer or servant makes the perpetration of the offence easier and the injury which is thereby caused to public faith is graver. The requirement that the forgery shall have been committed by the public officer or servant in the exercise of his functions implies that the document must be one failing within the official competence or jurisdiction of the public officer or servant concerned. The manner of falsification may be: i) by false signatures; or ii) by the alteration of any act, writing or signature; or iii) by inserting the name of any fictitious person; or
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