finally a brilliant judgement on point of jurisdiction us 138 n.i. act by apex court and holding that jurisdiction shall be act place where cheque is dishonoured by bank of accused. illegally Reliance is often placed on Bhaskarans case to justify institution of cases under section 138 far away from places where the transaction forming basis of the dishonoured cheque had taken place. It is not uncommon to find complaints filed in different jurisdiction for cheques dishonoured in the same transaction and at the same place. This procedure is more often than not intended to use such oppressive litigation to achieve the collateral purpose of extracting money from the accused by denying him a fair opportunity to contest the claim by dragging him to a distant place. Bhaskarans case could never have intended to give to the complainant/payee of the cheque such an advantage. Dashrath Rupsingh Rathod vs State Of Maharashtra & Anr on 1 August, 2014 Author: T Thakur Bench: T.S. Thakur, Vikramajit Sen, C. Nagappan IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 2287 OF 2009 Dashrath Rupsingh Rathod .............Appellant Versus State of Maharashtra & Anr. ...........Respondents W I T H CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 1593 OF 2014 [Arising out of S.L.P.(Crl.)No.2077 of 2009]; CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 1594 OF 2014 [Arising out of S.L.P.(Crl.)No.2112 of 2009]; CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 1595 OF 2014 [Arising out of S.L.P.(Crl.)No.2117 of 2009]; CRIMINAL APPEAL NOS. 1596-1600 OF 2014 [Arising out of S.L.P.(Crl.)Nos.1308-1312 of 2009]; CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.1601 OF 2014 [Arising out of S.L.P.(Crl.)No.3762 of 2012]; CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 1602 OF 2014 [Arising out of S.L.P.(Crl.)No.3943 of 2012]; CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.1603 OF 2014 [Arising out of S.L.P.(Crl.)No.3944 of 2012]; AND CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 1604 OF 2014 [Arising out of S.L.P.(Crl.)No.59 of 2013]. J U D G M E N T VIKRAMAJIT SEN, J. Leave granted in Special Leave Petitions. These Appeals raise a legal nodus of substantial public importance pertaining to Court’s territorial jurisdiction concerning criminal complaints filed under Chapter XVII of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (for short, ‘the NI Act’). This is amply adumbrated by the Orders dated 3.11.2009 in I.A.No.1 in CC 15974/2009 of the three-Judge Bench presided over by the then Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India, Hon’ble Mr. Justice V.S. Sirpurkar and Hon’ble Mr. Justice P. Sathasivam which SLP is also concerned with the interpretation of Section 138 of the NI Act, and wherein the Bench after issuing notice on the petition directed that it be posted before the three-Judge Bench. PRECEDENTS The earliest and the most often quoted decision of this Court relevant to the present conundrum is K. Bhaskaran v. Sankaran Vaidhyan Balan (1999) 7 SCC 510 wherein a two-Judge Bench has, inter alia, interpreted Section 138 of the NI Act to indicate that, “the offence under Section 138 can be completed only with the concatenation of a number of acts. but because multinational and other companies and commercial entities and agencies choose these places for filing the complaints for no better reason than the fact that notices demanding payment of cheque amounts were issued from such cities or the cheques were deposited for collection in their banks in those cities. Reliance is often placed on Bhaskarans case to justify institution of such cases far away from where the transaction forming basis of the dishonoured cheque had taken place. It is not uncommon to find complaints filed in different jurisdiction for cheques dishonoured in the same transaction and at the same place. This procedure is more often than not intended to use such oppressive litigation to achieve the collateral purpose of extracting money from the accused by denying him a fair opportunity to contest the claim by dragging him to a distant place. Bhaskarans case could never have intended to give to the complainant/payee of the cheque such an advantage.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 11:43:40 +0000
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