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Generate professional replies, appeals, opinions to Show Cause Notices, assessment orders, audit objections, and other legal communications using TaxTMI's AI Drafter.
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AI Drafter - (New and Powerful) ✕ Generate professional replies, appeals, opinions to Show Cause Notices, assessment orders, audit objections, and other legal communications using TaxTMI's AI Drafter.
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Issues: (i) Whether a complaint under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act could proceed against the legal heirs of a deceased drawer of the cheque. (ii) Whether non-compliance with the statutory requirement of issuing notice within the prescribed time affected the maintainability of the proceedings.
Issue (i): Whether a complaint under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act could proceed against the legal heirs of a deceased drawer of the cheque.
Analysis: The cheque had been issued by the husband of the accused, who had died before presentation of the complaint. The statutory scheme of the Negotiable Instruments Act did not contain any provision creating criminal liability against the legal heirs of a deceased drawer in such circumstances. The Court held that the provision could not be expanded by resort to the Code of Criminal Procedure, since Sections 394 and 256 of the Code dealt with different situations and did not govern a prosecution where the drawer had already died before the complaint was filed.
Conclusion: No prosecution under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act could be initiated or continued against the legal heirs of the deceased drawer.
Issue (ii): Whether non-compliance with the statutory requirement of issuing notice within the prescribed time affected the maintainability of the proceedings.
Analysis: The record showed that the notice was not issued within the statutory period from the date of receipt of bank information. The Court treated this as non-compliance with the mandatory requirement governing a prosecution under Section 138.
Conclusion: The proceedings were vitiated by failure to comply with the statutory notice requirement.
Final Conclusion: The revisional challenge succeeded, the cognizance order was set aside, and the criminal proceedings were quashed.
Ratio Decidendi: Criminal proceedings under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act do not survive against the legal heirs of a drawer who died before the complaint was instituted, and mandatory statutory notice requirements must be strictly complied with.
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