TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2017 (2) TMI 812
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....strate, Patiala House Courts, New Delhi under Sections 138 and 142 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (in short 'NI Act') qua the petitioner and also quashing of the summoning order dated 24th June, 2011. 2. A brief exposition of facts leading to filing of complaint is that the respondent No.1 Gopal Dass and six other persons namely Mahesh Kumar, Santosh, Vinod Kumar Bhardwaj, Ashok Das, Ankur Singhal and Tilak Raj Ahuja issued a legal notice through the counsel to Unicon under Section 138 NI Act on 26th February, 2011 stating that Unicon had received an amount of Rs. 5,98,600/- individually for booking of an apartment in Today Homes and Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. (in short 'Today Homes') and a Memorandum of Understanding in this regard....
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....s to Unicon and Nikhil Nigam, authorized signatory of Unicon on 5th May, 2011. Again a reply was sent by Unicon to the counsel on 18th May, 2011 stating that no cause of action arose against Unicon. 5. Hence Gopal Dass filed a criminal complaint being Complaint Case No.3967/1 titled as 'Shri Gopal Dass vs. Unicon Real Estates Pvt. Ltd. & Anr.' in the Court learned Metropolitan Magistrate, Patiala House Courts, New Delhi under Sections 138 and 142 of NI Act whereon summons were issued to both Unicon and Nikhil Nigam vide order dated 24th June, 2011. 6. Contention of learned counsel for the petitioner Unicon is twofold. Firstly, that the cheque was signed by Nikhil Nigam not as authorized signatory of Unicon but in his individual capacity a....
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.... company cannot be fastened in the absence of any specific provision permitting the same. 9. As regards the second contention, Supreme Court in Sadanandan (supra) laid down that the cause of action to file complaint on non-payment despite issue of notice arises but once and no fresh cause of action would arise on repeated dishonor on re-presentation. Describing the phrase 'cause of action' it was held: 5. The next question that falls for our determination is whether dishonour of the cheque on each occasion of its presentation gives rise to a fresh cause of action within the meaning of Section 142(b) of the Act. Section 142 reads as under: "142. Notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974),- (a) ....
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....iled to make the payment within 15 days of the receipt of the notice. If we were to proceed on the basis of the generic meaning of the term "cause of action", certainly each of the above facts would constitute a part of the cause of action but then it is significant to note that clause (b) of Section 142 gives it a restrictive meaning, in that, it refers to only one fact which will give rise to the cause of action and that is the failure to make the payment within 15 days from the date of the receipt of the notice. The reason behind giving such a restrictive meaning is not far to seek. Consequent upon the failure of the drawer to pay the money within the period of 15 days as envisaged under clause (c) of the proviso to Section 138, the lia....
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....on under clause (c) of Section 142 otiose, for, a payee who failed to file his complaint within one month and thereby forfeited his right to prosecute the drawer, can circumvent the above limitative clause by filing a complaint on the basis of a fresh presentation of the cheque and its dishonour. Since in the interpretation of statutes, the court always presumes that the legislature inserted every part thereof for a purpose and the legislative intention is that every part should have effect, the above conclusion cannot be drawn for that will make the provision for limiting the period of making the complaint nugatory. 9. Now, the question is how the apparently conflicting provisions of the Act, one enabling the payee to repeatedly present t....