Alteration In Documents – Addition And Overwriting

A document can be understood as information written on a substrate. Depending on the information contained, documents can be of different types, like personal, professional, medical, etc. Documents form an essential source of information and act as a record for future reference. Whenever any criminal activity is involved in the document or its alteration was a result of an ulterior motive, the authenticity of the document comes into question. Such a document is referred to as a questioned document.

There can be many different types of questioned documents, like holographic documents, documents whose origin is in dispute, documents whose authenticity is in question, unauthorised manipulation of documents, and documents that have fraudulent alterations. Criminals mostly tend to manipulate the document in an unauthorised manner. For doing so, they are involved in fraudulent alteration of the document.

Whenever a document is received in the forensic document examination division of the forensic science lab, it becomes the duty and responsibility of the document examiner to detect and evaluate the extent of such alterations. Different parameters of the document are taken into consideration while examining it for alteration. With the help of various techniques, they determine if the possible alterations were made illegally.

Alteration In Documents

Whenever any manipulation or change is made to a document in an unauthorised manner involving criminal intent or to hide or falsify given information, it is called alteration of documents. The alterations can be done by various methods like addition, overwriting, erasure, insertion and many more. Often, document alteration can be seen in cases where the perpetrator tries to forge signatures.

The main intention behind alteration would be to change the entire meaning of the document or modify it in such a manner that the present information can be hidden. The evaluation of alteration becomes possible only when the detection is made correctly. A few methods of detection are used, such as the composition of ink, analysis of different classes and individual characteristics of handwriting, checking the fibres of the writing surface, alternative light source, and the use of different optical microscopes. Once detected, it is the expertise, knowledge and skill of the document examiner to identify the alteration made and find out the original information present.

Parameters To Detect Alteration In a Document

1. Reviewing the content

The first step is to thoroughly check the content to see if the information in it seems to be fine or not. Many times, after reading a particular document, doubt regarding the authenticity of the document develops if its content does not make proper sense to the reader. That’s when the need arises to examine the document for alteration.

2. Traits of handwriting

Based on the principle that no two individuals can write exactly the same, analysis of handwriting can be made. If at any point in the written document, individual characteristics of a person’s handwriting are found to differ and represent another person’s handwriting, the document can be examined for the presence of alterations.

3. Stroke characteristics

The analysis of the stroke pattern gives an idea to the expert if all the contents of a document were written at the same time, by the same person and instrument or not. Only upon sincere examination of the altered document can the different stroke pattern be observed.

4. Features of ink

While trying to alter a document with the wrong motive, the perpetrator, doing so, ignores the chance of getting caught if he uses a different ink of the same colour. With the use of different light sources, the difference in ink composition gets detected. Even with the help of ink dating, the age of different types of ink on a single document can be detected, and hence the alteration can be detected.

5. Other analytical methods

Different analytical methods, which might be destructive in nature, can also be employed if the detection of alteration is not possible using the techniques mentioned above. Chemical methods, thin layer chromatography, etc., can be used. Since alterations are done by making minimal modifications, destructive analysis can lead to the loss of the entire sample.

6. Uniformity of writing

If a perpetrator plans to alter a document, he might try to fit in the addition in the available space so the lack of uniformity can be easily visualised in the writing.

Addition, Alteration In Documents

Addition is a type of document alteration where words or digits are intentionally added in a document in an unauthorised manner to alter the document. Such additional insertions can change the entire meaning of the document. The addition is usually done in the spaces left between the writings or at the bottom of the page where the original writing ends. If the addition or alteration is done in the very little space present in between the writings, the letters tend to get squeezed. In such a case, the size of the added word or letter appears to be much less than the rest of the writing. However, if enough space is present between the written initially words, then the size of such newly written words will be more or less the same, covering the entire space left between the writings. When the additions to a document are carefully done, such a scenario can arouse suspicion and be detected with tactful methods.

The entire document must be extensively studied in order to determine the presence of such alterations. The need to investigate addition or alteration can be of two types. First, whether the alterations were initially present or not. Second, the original content of the document must be determined. Insertions can also be present in the form of interlineations, which are the act of writing in between the lines of an already written document.

Types Of Addition Alteration

It has been observed that a document can be altered by addition in the following ways

1. Interlineation

It is the addition of an extra line of words, phrases or clauses in between the already existing lines of a document. Such an extraordinary thing can arouse suspicion in the mind of the reader. The type of pen used, ink composition, sequence of strokes, extent of pen pressure, etc., are the characteristics that can be checked for identification. For example, an original document contained information that said, ‘Bob will meet Harry at 2pm on Thursday’.  In such an example, the words’ at 2pm’ might be added later.

2. Insertion in cheque entries

Often, fraudulent money transactions are made in a previously issued cheque. The ink composition and different spectroscopic analyses are helpful in determining the possible fraud. For example, a person issued a one-rupee chequ,e but later he found that a sum of one thousand has been debited from his account. Upon investigation, it was found that the word ‘thousand’ and three extra zeros were later added to the cheque before it was issued.

3. Sheet insertion

Another type of document alteration due to addition can be the insertion of sheets in between an already existing document of multiple sheets. The determination of such sheet insertion is done by checking the staple holes, shade of paper colour, size of paper, presence of water marks, and difference in ink (printing or writing). In case of ruled papers, the spacing between the rules of all the documents should be checked. In case of the staple holes, there might be some ambiguity in the difference in size and location of the holes.

Overwriting Alteration In Documents

The act of changing the existing writing into something new with the help of strokes, letters, digits, etc., can be termed as overwriting. In such cases of alteration, there comes a challenge in determining if the change made was due to a genuine mistake made while writing or was it done to manipulate a document involving criminal motives. Many writers have the habit of making mistakes while writing, and later try to overwrite those to hide the faults. Such cases can be identified by looking at the frequency of such overwriting in the entire length of writing. This is because a person who is involuntarily overwriting a document has the tendency to repeat the same mistakes often. Also, in genuine cases, the overwritten letters or words are clearly visible as the writer does not try to hide the overwriting as strongly as a perpetrator would.

The person with a criminal intent to alter a document keeps the overwriting very clear without making it stand out in the entire document. In the case of fraudulent overwriting, the frequency of such alteration is also lower than that of genuine alteration, as the primary intention is just to do the intended alteration. Such overwriting is done carefully, and maximum efforts are made to hide the alteration. In case the actual writing tool is not present with the perpetrator, he tries to use a substitute tool resembling the original mark. This makes the detection of such an alteration easy.

Types Of Overwriting Alteration

1. Presence of numbers

When specific numbers are present on the document, alterations are possible. For example, the number 1 can be changed to 4,7, 9 and 11, 3 can be changed to 8, 5 can be changed to 6, 16 etc. such number alterations are difficult to detect by the naked eyes but UV light can be used to detect such change based of difference in ink composition.

2. Different ink shade

While overwriting a document, the writer often fails to consider the exact shade of a particular ink colour. This property makes the ink appear different in the eyes of an expert.

3. Concealment of original writing

Once the perpetrator has successfully completed overwriting, he would try to hide the original writing in the best possible way as he can. For example, if a person has to do some overwriting in a signature, he would try to overwrite the whole of it instead of just the small part where signature is forged in order to hide the alteration.

4. To make the original look fake

A clever way of not getting caught is to alter the original document so that the comparison is not possible. Whenever a questioned document is obtained by the forensic expert, their primary concern is to compare it with the standard to determine the authenticity of the document. The person involved in the crime might try to change the original document by overwriting it so that the comparison might become impossible.

Detection Of Overwriting

Overwriting in a document can be detected in a number of ways, such as using alternative light sources, oblique light, spectrometric examination, indentation marks and so on. The most crucial point that the examiner should remember while examining for overwriting is to check the back side of the writing surface. Often, overwriting leaves a pen mark on the other side of the writing due to high pen pressure. This is visible in the form of excess ink deposition on the spot of overwriting, making that point look different from the rest of the paper.

Conclusion

Alteration in documents in the form of addition and overwriting is done by perpetrators with criminal intentions. The detection of such alteration is a challenging task, but once detected, it can be invaluable in identifying the criminal act. With the help of careful detection, the originality and authenticity of a document can be found out. If a lot of writing is involved in the document, there is a possibility that specific characteristics about the person can be determined by analysing the handwriting. The forensic document examination is thus a very challenging field when it comes to identifying such document alteration in the form of addition and overwriting. This is because it requires great skill and expertise on the part of the examiner dealing with a particular document to determine the alteration and its type.

References

1. https://www.lkouniv.ac.in/site/writereaddata/siteContent/202003241550008847kamyani_vajpayee_Alteration_in_Documents_addition.pdf
2. https://www.lsd.law/define/interlineation#:~:text=Example%201%3A%20A%20contract%20is,car%20from%20red%20to%20blue.
3. https://www.drexdoclab.com/identification-of-additions-or-deletions.html
4. Morton, Susan E., and Bonnie L. Beal. “Alterations in Documents.” In Scientific examination of questioned documents, pp. 337-354. CRC Press, 2006.
5. Pandey, Ramesh Kumar, Mahipal Singh Sankhla, and Rajeev Kumar. “Forensic Investigation of Suspected Document for Alteration, Erasures & Obliteration.” Galore International Journal of Applied Science and Humanities 2, no. 1 (2018).
6. https://dekalbmiller.com/detecting-alterations/
7. https://fastercapital.com/topics/document-alterations-and-their-significance.html#:~:text=From%20a%20legal%20perspective%2C%20document,been%20changed%20without%20proper%20consent.

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