Madras High Court sentences police officer to three-month imprisonment for forging Inspector’s signature in charge-sheet

The Madras High Court on Monday (August 25, 2025) found a Special Sub-Inspector of Police (SSI) guilty of contempt of court and sentenced him to three months of simple imprisonment for having forged the signature of an Inspector of Police in a charge-sheet filed before a judicial magistrate in a criminal case.

Justice P. Velmurugan imposed the sentence after SSI K. Sankar appeared in person before the court and conceded to have affixed the signature of Inspector Rangarajan in the charge-sheet, after the latter got transferred out of Valangaiman police station in Tiruvarur district.

When the judge wanted to know why the SSI did so, he replied that he was in charge of the case when the charge-sheet was filed. “If you were in charge of the case, you should have affixed your signature, not the signature of the other officer. What kind of reply is this?” the judge rebuked.

Wondering if this was how police officers had been trained, the judge said the act amounts to cheating the court before which the charge-sheet was filed, especially when the document was not an empty formality but a crucial material that could decide the fate of the persons listed as accused in the case.

The judge pointed out that initially, an individual named Panneer Selvam Pradeepan, employed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), had filed a petition in the High Court in 2023 for quashing a First Information Report (FIR) registered against him on the basis of a domestic dispute with his estranged wife.

The High Court had on August 16, 2023, stayed all further proceedings in the investigation pending against him before the Valangaiman police station. Yet, the police went ahead and issued a look out circular (LOC) and hence, he was forced to move the High Court once again challenging the LOC.

While hearing the writ petition challenging the LOC, Justice Velmurugan found that the police had filed a charge-sheet too in violation of the 2023 stay order, which was still in force. Hence, the judge allowed the writ petition, quashed the LOC, and initiated suo motu contempt of court proceedings against the Tiruvarur Superintendent of Police, Nanillam Deputy Superintendent of Police, and Valangaiman Inspector of Police.

Accordingly, the Superintendent of Police Karun Garad appeared before the court on August 20, 2025, and reported that an internal inquiry had revealed Inspector Rangarajan was transferred out of Valangaiman police station on November 16, 2023, and SSI K. Sankar had forged the signature of Mr. Rangarajan in the charge-sheet filed before a judicial magistrate on May 22, 2024.

Subsequently, the judge impleaded Mr. Sankar as one of the respondents to the suo motu contempt of court petition, heard his submissions, and sentenced him to imprisonment on Monday.