TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (7) TMI 552
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....ttal rendered in the above-said case, the complainant approached this Court with the present appeal. The parties in this appeal shall be referred to as the complainant and the accused hereafter. 2. The case of the complainant in brief is as follows; On 09.08.2006, the accused borrowed an amount of Rs. 1,00,000/- from the complainant and towards the discharge of the said liability, issued a cheque dated 04.01.2007 drawn on the account maintained by him with the State Bank of Travancore, Sasthamcotta branch, in favour of the complainant. When the complainant presented the said cheque for collection on 04.01.2007, through the account maintained by him with the State Bank of Travancore, Kizhakke Kallada branch, the same was returned dishonored, stating the reason 'funds insufficient'. Thereafter, the complainant issued a notice to the accused intimating the factum of dishonor of the cheque and demanding the payment of the cheque amount. Though the said notice was duly served, the accused neither made the payment nor issued any reply. Hence, the accused is alleged to have committed an offence punishable under Section 138 of N.I. Act. 3. Before the trial court, the complainant was exa....
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....ence on record. 7. Per contra, the learned counsel for the respondent submitted that the complainant had miserably failed to prove the transaction alleged in this case. According to the counsel, Ext.P1 cheque is not supported by any consideration and therefore, its dishonour due to insufficiency of funds does not give rise to a cause of action to initiate a prosecution under Section 138 of N.I. Act. It was further contended that when the complainant was examined as PW1 and a witness from his side was examined as PW2, both of them testified that they did not witness the accused entering the amount in Ext. P1 cheque. This, according to the counsel, clearly establishes that Ext.P1 was a security cheque issued in connection with a chitty transaction, which the accused had with the complainant and later misused by the complainant to file the complaint. 8. Before delving into a detailed discussion regarding the scope of interference in the present appeal, it is pertinent to note that the legal yardsticks applicable to appeals against acquittal and those against conviction are distinct. Generally, the appellate court will not interfere with the finding of an acquittal unless it is found....
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.... 6 SCC 16] Hiten P. Dalal v. Bratindranath Banerjee, [AIR 1958 SC 61] State of Madras v. Vaidyanatha lyer, [(2005) 5 SCC 294] Ranjitsing Brahmajeetsing Sharma v. State of Maharashtra, [(2007) 1 SCC 70] Rajesh Ranjan Yada @Pappu Yadav v. CBI through its Director, [(2012) 13 SCC 375] Laxmi Dyechem v. State of Gujarat, [(2001) 8 SCC 458] K.N.Beena v. Muniyappan, [(2012) 1 SCC 260] R. Vijayan v. Baby, [(2009) 6 SCC 72] Raj Kumar Khurana v. State of (NCT of Delhi), [(2007) 12 SCC 714] John K. John v. Tom Varghese, [(2008) 4 SCC 54] Krishna Janardhan Bhat v. Dattatraya G. Hegde and [(1992) 1 SCC 489] State of Punjab v. Surinder Kumar. Paragraph Nos. 36 to 40 and 42 are extracted as under: 36. The proposition of law which emerges from the judgments referred to above is that the onus to rebut the presumption under Section 139 that the cheque has been issued in discharge of a debt or liability is on the accused and the fact that the cheque might be post dated does not absolve the drawer of a cheque of the penal consequences of Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act. 37. A meaningful reading of the provisions of the Negotiable Instruments Act including, in particular, Sections 20,....
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....rge under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act. 10. Insofar as the legal position as regards to the issuance of blank cheque is concerned, the same is well settled as extracted in Bir Singh's case (supra). Thus, even a blank cheque leaf, voluntarily signed and handed over by the drawer, which is towards some payment, would attract presumptions under Sections 118 and 139 of the N.I. Act, in the absence of any cogent evidence to show that the cheque was not issued in discharge of a debt or legal liability. The law does not mandate that a cheque shall be in the handwriting of the drawer. On the contrary, a cheque can be written by anybody other than a drawer, and the only mandate of law is that the holder in due course/payee has to prove the transaction and execution of the cheque to impose criminal culpability on the drawer. In view of the above legal position, merely because the cheque was written by another person, instead the drawer himself, whether he is capable of writing himself or otherwise, would not make the cheque invalid or the prosecution case untrustworthy. In such cases also, when the transaction and execution of the cheque is proved by evidence, presumpti....
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....his case, borrowed an amount of Rs. 85,000/- from the complainant in connection with a chitty transaction. As per the terms of the said transaction, his brother had to pay an amount of Rs. 1,000/- per day to the complainant. DW1 further deposed that Ext.P1 was a cheque leaf issued by his brother in the said transaction as a security. Apart from the above oral evidence, two passbooks and one diary were also produced from the side of the defense and marked in evidence Exts. D1 to D3 subject to proof. However, a perusal of Exts.D1 to D3 clearly shows that there is nothing in those documents to indicate that the said passbook pertains to any chitty transaction or has any connection with the complainant in the present case. Neither the name of the complainant nor his signature or initial appears in the said document. Therefore, I am of the view that the said feeble and interested evidence of DW1 is insufficient to displace the presumption available in favour of the complainant under Sections 118 and 139 of N.I. Act. 13. One of the reasons assigned by the learned Sessions Judge for acquitting the accused was that since the accused was an income tax payee during the period of the alleged....