2015 (4) TMI 1350

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....e appellant initiated proceedings under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, had the jurisdiction to entertain the same. 4. Learned counsel for the rival parties have invited our attention, to the judgment rendered by a three-Judge Bench of this Court in Dashrath Rupsingh Rathod vs. State of Maharashtra and another, (2014) 9 SCC 129, and have drawn our attention to the following observations recorded therein "22. We are quite alive to the magnitude of the impact that the present decision shall have to possibly lakhs of cases pending in various courts spanning across the country. One approach could be to declare that this judgment will have only prospective pertinence i.e. applicability to complaints that may be filed afte....

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....filed within thirty days of their return, they shall be deemed to have been filed within the time prescribed by law, unless the initial or prior filing was itself time-barred." (emphasis is ours) 5. On a perusal of the conclusions drawn in paragraph 22, extracted hereinabove, we feel that the proceedings initiated prior to the rendering of the judgment in Dashrath Rupsingh Rathod's case (supra) on 01.08.2014, will be preserved at the place they were filed, only when "post the summoning and appearance of the alleged accused, the recording of evidence has commenced as envisaged in Section 145(2) of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881". In order to further explain its intent, the judgment clarifies, that merely leading of evidence at th....