Revision maintainability and cheque dishonour compromise: surrender certificate is procedural, and settlement can justify acquittal.

Non-surrender before filing a revision petition under the Rajasthan High Court Rules was held to be a registry-level defect only; it did not defeat the revision's substantive maintainability under Sections 397 and 401 CrPC, and the rules could not be read as imposing a pre-filing surrender requirement absent statutory support. In a prosecution under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, the complainant's acceptance of payment and the recorded compromise meant the liability stood satisfied, so the conviction and sentence were set aside and the accused was acquitted.

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Issues: (i) Whether non-surrender of an accused before filing a revision petition under the High Court Rules makes the petition not maintainable. (ii) Whether, in a prosecution under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, compromise and payment of the amount justify setting aside the conviction and acquittal of the accused.

Issue (i): Whether non-surrender of an accused before filing a revision petition under the High Court Rules makes the petition not maintainable.

Analysis: Rule 311 of the Rajasthan High Court Rules requires that, where imprisonment has been awarded, the petition contain a certificate stating whether the accused was on bail or, if so, that he has surrendered. Read with Rule 308, this requirement was treated as part of the papers to be checked by the registry. The omission of the certificate affects only the presentation of the petition before the registry and does not go to the substantive maintainability of the revision under Sections 397 and 401 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The Court further held that the rules cannot be construed to impose a pre-filing surrender requirement where the parent statute does not provide one, and such a construction would be inconsistent with personal liberty under Article 21.

Conclusion: Non-surrender before filing does not render the revision petition not maintainable; at most, it makes the petition defective at the registry stage.

Issue (ii): Whether, in a prosecution under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, compromise and payment of the amount justify setting aside the conviction and acquittal of the accused.

Analysis: The complainant accepted the amount and a compromise was produced before the Court. In a prosecution under Section 138, the object is to secure payment of the due amount rather than to impose punishment as an end in itself. Once the liability stood satisfied and the compromise was established, continuation of the conviction was unnecessary and the matter was fit to be compounded.

Conclusion: The conviction and sentence were set aside and the petitioner was acquitted under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act.

Final Conclusion: The petition succeeded both on the preliminary objection and on the merits, resulting in removal of the conviction and release of the petitioner from the penal consequences of the cheque dishonour proceedings.

Ratio Decidendi: A surrender certificate under the High Court Rules is a procedural requirement affecting registry presentation, not the substantive maintainability of a revision, and a Section 138 prosecution may be concluded by setting aside the conviction where the cheque amount has been accepted in compromise.

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