Mumbai, Feb 17 (Mumbai Mirror): Everyone knows judges are under immense pressure because of pending cases but one overzealous court clerk landed himself in massive trouble when he decided to take matters into his own hands, literally.

Maruti Salunkhe, a clerk at the Ballard Pier Metropolitan Court, has been charged with forging signatures of a magistrate on as many as 105 files. The matter came to light when the magistrate himself saw the signature on one of the documents and realised he had never signed on it. When confronted, the clerk said his sole intention was to clear pending files.

Salunkhe has been arrested and booked under the Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 466 (forgery of record of court), 467 (forgery of valuable security, Will, etc), 471 (using a forged document), and 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant).

Preliminary investigation by the MRA Marg Police revealed Salunkhe had forged the magistrate’s signatures on files that were related to dud cheques, and concerned one private finance company. A probe is under way to find out whether the finance company or its employees had connived with Salunkhe to clear the files.

“The files are from room number 33 at the Ballard Pier Metropolitan Court that deals with cases of bounced cheques. These cases are filed by banking companies and the magistrate directs them to the concerned jurisdictions,” an officer from MRA Marg Police Station said.

The officer said the magistrate noticed his signature on a file that was on the top of the pile and found many such documents. “It emerged that 105 files had forged signature of the same magistrate. The accused said the files were pending for several months and he wanted to clear them to avoid delays,” the officer said.