https://www.taxtmi.com/caselaws?id=106260 For a prosecution under section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, cognizance depends on a complaint in writing by the payee or holder in due course; an omission of the complainant-company's signature is not, by itself, fatal. Reading the NI Act with the Code of Criminal Procedure, the court treated writing as the essential requirement and held that signature is not invariably mandatory unless the statute so requires. Because the authorised representative had appeared, given preliminary evidence, and the Magistrate had already acted on the complaint, the defect was treated as an inadvertent curable irregularity. No prejudice or failure of justice was shown, so the unsigned complaint remained maintainable. en-us Wed, 04 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0530 Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:40:38 +0530 TaxTMI RSS Generator https://www.taxtmi.com/caselaws?id=106260 For a prosecution under section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, cognizance depends on a complaint in writing by the payee or holder in due course; an omission of the complainant-company's signature is not, by itself, fatal. Reading the NI Act with the Code of Criminal Procedure, the court treated writing as the essential requirement and held that signature is not invariably mandatory unless the statute so requires. Because the authorised representative had appeared, given preliminary evidence, and the Magistrate had already acted on the complaint, the defect was treated as an inadvertent curable irregularity. No prejudice or failure of justice was shown, so the unsigned complaint remained maintainable. Case-Laws Companies Law Wed, 04 Mar 1998 00:00:00 +0530 https://www.taxtmi.com/caselaws?id=106260