Delhi High Court: Sunil Gaur, J. allowed a petition filed against the order of the trial court whereby it had passed summoning orders against the petitioners in a complaint filed for committing of an offence under Section 138 (dishonour of cheque) of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881.
The petitioners, represented by Senior Advocate N. Hariharan with Ashwani Kr. Dhatwalia, Iti Sharma and Kuljeet Rawal, Advocates, prayed for quashing the summoning orders as well as the complaint filed under Section 138. They relied on Indus Airways (P) Ltd. v. Magnum Aviation (P) Ltd.,(2014) 12 SCC 539 for submitting that the cheques in question were security cheques, they disputed that there was no existing debt or liability. Per contra, Ashish Pratap Singh and Deepa Sharma, Advocates appearing for the complainant submitted that the cheques in question were towards an existing liability and were not security cheques.
The High Court referred to Pepsi Foods Ltd. v. Special Judicial Magistrate, (1998) 5 SCC 749 quashed the complaint and the summoning order, as it was found that there were no averments in the complaint on the basis of which a complaint could be maintained. Further, in SMS Pharmaceuticals Ltd. v. Neeta Bhalla, (2005) 8 SCC 89 reiterated that in the case of Section 138, the essential averments are to be made in the complaint. Again, in Omniplast (P) Ltd. v. Standard Chartered Bank, (2015) 15 SCC 693, it was declared that in the absence of requisite pleadings in respect of the transaction concerned, quashing of the complaint of Section 138 NI Act is justified.
In the present matter, after perusing the record, the Court was of the opinion that the necessary ingredients to maintain the complaints in question were lacking, thereby rendering the impugned order unsustainable and so, the continuance of proceedings arising out of the complaints in question would be an exercise in futility. Resultantly, the impugned complaints and the summoning orders were quashed.[Shivom Minerals Ltd., v. State, 2019 SCC OnLine Del 9329, decided on 17-07-2019]
