Prepared by-
Shrutika Singla
Presented by-
Gauri Maske
Objective: To study different types of forgery.
Requirements:
1. Pen
2. Paper
3. Microscope
4. Camera
Theory:
Document is any material that convey a message in the form of sign, symbol, color and letter.
Forgery is an important part of documents as it results by altering the handwriting in such a way to have a false impression of handwriting. It is mainly done to hide the actual writer of handwriting or to manipulate the evidence. Forgeries are done to take advantages of one’s authority, for example, signature of person ‘A’ is forged by person ‘B’ in order to use signature of ‘A’ for advantage of ‘B’. It is also done to hide the identity of an individual, for example, person ‘A’ will do the signature of person ‘Y’ to hide his identity.
Forgery is also used for misleading. For example, there is a will of father ‘F’ that he does not sign but his son ‘S’ knows his father’s signature. Now ‘S’ will sign the will and show everyone that ‘F’ has signed it to mislead the family.
There are different types of forgeries as follow:
1. Simulated Forgery: Simulated forgery is the type of forgery where a person copies signature of another person by looking at the model signature. In this type of forgery, model signature is present in front of forgerer and he is copying from it. This type of forgery totally depends on the skills of the person copying signatures. The forged signature will contain tremor marks, change in alignment, and line quality, pen lifts and pen pauses.
Figure 1: (a) Genuine Signature and (b) Simulated Signature
2. Traced Forgery: In traced forgery, there is an exact copying of the written material. Tracing instrument such as traced paper, carbon paper, and transmitted lights are used for copying the signature. The copied signature will have exact measurement of the model signature. There will be hesitation marks, changes in direction and alignment, inconsistent pen pressure and unnatural pen pauses, and pen lifts will be observed.
Figure 2: Model Signature and Traced Forgery
3. Freehand Forgery: In freehand forgery, the person will have model signature in front of him/her but he does not copy the characteristics of signature. He will do the signature in his own handwriting. The characteristics of personal handwriting can be seen in the freehand forged signature.
Figure 3: Genuine and Free-hand forgery
4. Forgery by memory: In this type of forgery, the person will not have model signature in front of him. Rather, he/ she has a memory of the signature to be copied and he do the signature by looking in his/ her memory.
Figure 4: Forgery by memory and Genuine Signature
5. Forgery by impersonation: In this type of forgery, a person signs any document being another person. For example, student ‘P’ needs to sign on his attendance list, but student ‘Q’ signed under his name. Another example can be of a person ‘P’ who has to sign a document but he does not want to disclose his/ her identity, then he just imagine a random name and sign for that name.
6. Transplanting signature: Genuine signature is removed and transplanted to another document to make it genuine document.
Forensic Significance of Tempered Documents:
1. Forgery leaves a trail of evidence.
2. Personal identification of an individual can be done by signature analysis.
3. These forgeries can be uncovered by using different forensic equipment.
4. Original text written over the document can be analyzed.
5. It is admissible in court of law and can be used as evidence.
6. In some of the cases, it stores information that cannot be taken up during the investigation process.
Procedure:
A. Simulated Forgery:
1. Sign your signature on a paper.
2. Ask another person to copy the signature exactly it is.
3. Take photograph of the complete document.
4. Look the complete document very carefully.
5. Pick the microscope and identify which differences in genuine and forged signature erasure.
B. Traced Forgery:
1. Sign your signature on a paper.
2. Take a traced paper or carbon paper or use transmitted light for copying the signature.
3. Take photograph of the complete document.
4. Use microscope to see the characteristics of traced signature.
C. Freehand Forgery:
1. Sign your signature on a paper.
2. Ask another person to sign this but don’t copy. Ask them to do it in their own way.
3. Take photograph of the complete document.
4. Look the complete document carefully for the changes in signature.
5. Use microscope to see the differences.
D. Forgery by memory:
1. Remember your teacher’s signature and do it in a blank sheet.
2. Take photograph of the complete document.
3. Take genuine signature done by your teacher.
4. Use microscope to see the differences between forged and genuine signature.
Observations:
One will observe different types of forgery in documents.
Results:
Observations will tell us the difference between genuine and forged signatures.
Precautions:
1. Focus the camera while taking pictures.
2. Take pictures from the angle where better vision is possible.
3. Do not temper the document.
4. Handle the document very carefully.
5. Use microscope to observe different types of tempering.
Click here <Video> to watch this practical in video form.
