Hon’ble Apex Court held that,
Sachida Nand Singh and Anr Vs State of Bihar and Anr on 3 February, 1998The scope of the preliminary enquiry envisaged in Section 340(1) of the Code is to ascertain whether any offence affecting administration of justice ha been committed in respect of a document produced in Court or given in evidence in a proceeding in that Court. In other words, the offence should have been committed during the time when the document was in custodia legis.
It would be a strained thinking that any offence involving forgery of a document if committed far outside the precincts of the Court and long before its production in the Court, could also be treated as on affecting administration of justice merely because that document later reached the Court records.
Citation: (1998) 2 SCC 493
Indiankanoon.org link: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1743953/