Rebuttable presumption under Section 139: admissions can displace it and prosecution fails where firm not impleaded.

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....Where the documentary evidence attributes the cheque liability to a partnership firm, the statutory scheme requires the firm to be impleaded and served with notice before criminal proceedings against individual partners can proceed; failure to implead the firm and to satisfy those requisites renders prosecution defective and individual conviction unsustainable. The evidential presumption of negotiable-instrument liability is rebuttable; admissions showing firm-related transactions shift the burden back to the complainant to prove a personal, legally enforceable debt, and absence of such proof defeats the prosecution's case.....