Delhi High Court: Subramonium Prasad, J., addressed a matter wherein it was reiterated that the initial burden of proving the burden of the non-existence of debt is on the accused under Section 118 of Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881.
The instant revision petition was filed against the order passed dismissing the appeal and affirming the Metropolitan Magistrate’s order convicting the petitioner for offences punishable under Section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881.
Petitioner has also challenged the order wherein the petitioner has been sentenced to undergo imprisonment for a period of two months and also directed the petitioner to pay an amount of Rs 13 lakhs as fine payable as compensation to the respondent as per the provision of Section 143 (1) of NI Act read with Section 357 (1)(3) of CrPC.
Facts that lead to the case
Respondent financed a bus for the petitioner by giving a loan and in discharge of the liability, petitioner handed over the cheques in favour of the respondent. When the said cheques were deposited they were returned as unpaid/dishonored for the reason ‘Funds Insufficient’.
Petitioner submitted that the vehicle was handed over to the respondent company for getting the vehicle converted to CNG but the said vehicle was never returned to the petitioner nor the accounts related to the hire purchase were settled. In fact, the blank cheques given to the respondent earlier were misused.
Though Metropolitan magistrate found the petitioner’s deposition to be inconsistent and found that the bus was already sold by the petitioner.
Metropolitan Magistrate, therefore, held that the accused/petitioner was not been able to rebut the presumption that the cheques had been paid for the discharge of any liability and hence convicted under Section 138 NI Act.
Analysis, Law and Decision
Section 118 of the NI Act raises a presumption that a cheque is issued for consideration until the contrary is proved. It is well settled that the initial burden in this regard lies on the accused to prove the non-existence of debt by bringing on record such facts and circumstances which would lead the Court to believe the non-existence of debt either by direct evidence or by preponderance of probabilities.
In the instant matter, other than mere ipsi dixit of the petitioner there was no debt due and payable nothing was on record to show that the cheques were not issued for discharge of liability for the bus.
Bench stated that the purpose of introducing Section 138 of the NI Act was to bring sanctity in commercial transactions.
Further, the Court noted that the lower courts on perusal of records came to the conclusion that the cheques were given in discharge of the debt.
While expressing that the scope of revision petition under Sections 397/401 CrPC read with Section 482 CrPC is extremely narrow Court referred the following Supreme Court decisions:
State v. Manimaran, (2019) 13 670
State of Haryana v. Rajmal, (2011) 14 SCC 326
In view of the above discussion, Bench did not find any that required the interference in the lower court’s judgment.
Further, the Court added that the respondent did not file the books of accounts was not fatal to the case of the respondent. It was open to the petitioner to produce his books of accounts to rebut the presumption and bring out a prima facie case that there was no debt due and payable on the date the cheques were dishonoured.
Petitioner failed to show as to how there was no subsisting debt on the date when the cheques were dishonoured due to insufficiency of funds.
In view of the above discussion, the revision petition was dismissed. [G.D. Kataria v. AVL Leasing & Financing Ltd., 2020 SCC OnLine Del 1056, decided on 03-02-2021]
Advocates for the parties:
Petitioner: Medhanshu Tripathi, Advocate
Respondent: Anuj Soni, Advocate
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