2016 (11) TMI 24

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....judgment dated 26.02.2016 passed by the learned Metropolitan Magistrate the petitioner was convicted for offence under Section 138 of the N.I. Act and vide order on sentence dated 16.03.2016, he was sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for four months and to pay the compensation of Rs. 2,20,000/- to the complainant. In default of payment of compensation, the petitioner would further undergo simple imprisonment for two months. 2. The facts in brief are that a complaint was filed by the complainant/respondent no.2 against the accused/petitioner with the allegations that both of them were friends. The petitioner approached the respondent no.2 in December, 2008 for a friendly loan of Rs. 1.5 lacs. The respondent no.2 advanced the loan of R....

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....here were contradictions in his case. The presumption of Section 118(g) of the N.I. Act has wrongly been placed by the Courts below. The judgments have been passed on the basis of presumptions only. An adverse inference has been drawn against the petitioner for not producing Sukhbir, but the fact remained that Sukhbir was related to respondent no.2/complainant. It was further argued that the petitioner is behind the bars since 03.05.2016. 6. Per contra, it was argued that the complainant had duly established his case beyond reasonable doubt that loan of Rs. 1.5 lacs was taken by the petitioner from the respondent no.2/ complainant and to discharge his liability, he had issued the cheque in question. It was further argued that the cheque wa....

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..... The plea of the petitioner that he had issued the cheque in question to one Sukhbir Singh has not been established as Sukhbir Singh was never examined by the petitioner. The petitioner was given opportunity to lead his defence evidence. Despite availing the said opportunity, the petitioner had not produced any defence evidence to establish his plea that he had given the cheque in question to one Sukhbir Singh. 10. The Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of Vijay v. Laxman and Anr. (2013) 3 SCC 86 has observed that once the cheque has been issued and the signatures thereon has been admitted by the accused, then it is not available to the accused to take the defence that the cheque was not issued by him. Relevant portion reads as under : "Havi....