Introduction

Handwritten signature is being used on regular basis, because of its frequent use it is always questioned. As many a time people tries to imitate the signature of an individual for their personal benefit or for harming an individual or an organization. Therefore there is need for verifying the signature to know who actually signed the document. But before understanding how to verify that the particular signature is genuine or not, first the concept of signature must be clear. Signature is generally defined as a name or a mark that a person puts on a document to authorize that the document has been crosschecked by him/her (Mathyer, 1961). The signature is classified into Formal signature, Informal Signature and Careless scribbled signature which the writer execute as per need or requirement (Saferstein, 1982). But currently the signatures are frequently the subject of forgery (Jackson and Jackson, 2011). Forgery means to dishonestly making, altering, or writing one’s signature, which is usually tried by offenders in most of circumstances with the intention of making money from the acquitted parties (Lerner and Lerner, 2006). There are number of forger who prepare the forged documents either by trickery or by using different method of forgery such as tracing, simulation, transplanting, and computer generated document. The most commonly used method is tracing, a mechanical act in which forger imitates exact copy of the genuine signature. For tracing a signature the forger must have a model signature to copy and if the forger successfully execute the tracing then the forged signature will show exact mathematical measurement, which can be verified by using superimposition technique (Misra et al.). In current scenario, according to the forensic document experts, a traced forgery is the crudest forgery. 

Hence, after concluding that the particular signature is forged the next question comes in the mind of forensic document examiner is to identify the forger. In the field of questioned document, identification of signature and handwriting is necessary (Levinson, 2001). The identifying feature that should be taken into consideration while dealing with traced forgery cases are as follows abrupt changes in the direction of the line, lack of fluency, more line tremors, pen lifts, blobs of ink, retracing, and poorer duplication of the line quality than free-hand forgeries. In carbon paper tracing method, residues of carbon along the inked lines under microscope, indentation which can be visible under Electrostatic Detection Apparatus (ESDA) (Hilton, 1939; Koppenhaver, 2002; White, 2004). Here in this paper, we had discussed a case on traced forgery with an aim to identify the method used for tracing and to know the origination of the questioned signature.