Introduction
HANDWRITING ANALYSIS
Handwriting identification is one of the most important areas of questioned documents.
Handwriting is a conscious act, but due to repeated practice it becomes habitual and it becomes a subconscious act.
The quality (class and individual characteristics) of handwriting is governed by schooling, training, writing experience, environments, occupation etc. Also it is affected by the mental, emotional and physical makeup of the person.
Handwriting undergoes changes throughout the life time of a person. Comparison made between the written materials made by the same person with a time gap of 10yrs will show considerable difference.
Handwriting is individualistic to a person. No two persons can have exactly same handwriting because their experiences and physical and emotional states are different. Therefore handwriting of a person is unique and this forms the basis of handwriting analysis as part of identification in forensic investigations.

NATURAL VARIATIONS
Our arm, hand and fingers are not printing machines . It cannot produce exactly same copies of written material due to changes in external and internal influences. Variations in handwriting can be produced due to:
• Fatigue
• Illness
• Age
• Nature of writing materials
• Writing position
• Physical disturbances
• Emotional state
• Space available for writing etc

The variations seen in a sample, up to a limit is considered as Natural variations, beyond which are the characteristics of