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M/s. Sicagen India Ltd. v. Mahindra Vadineni and Ors.

Criminal Appeal · 2019 INSC 39Decided 8 Jan 2019
Criminal Appeal Nos. 26-27 of 2019
Justice R. Banumathi · Justice Indira Banerjee

Background

The appellant company had business dealings with the respondents, who issued three cheques that were dishonoured for insufficient funds. The appellant first sent a notice demanding payment in August 2009, then presented the cheques again; after they bounced a second time, it sent a fresh statutory notice in January 2010 and filed a criminal complaint based on this second notice. The Madras High Court quashed the complaint, holding that since the amount had already been specified in the first notice, the complainant could not "restart the clock" by issuing a second notice and complaint on the same cause of action.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that this issue was already settled by a three-judge bench decision in MSR Leathers v. S. Palaniappan (2013), which ruled that nothing in Section 138 bars a holder of a dishonoured cheque from presenting it again and launching a prosecution based on the second or any subsequent dishonour, so long as the presentation happens within the cheque's validity period. Applying this ratio, the complaint based on the second statutory notice was not barred, and the High Court was wrong to quash it. The Supreme Court set aside the High Court's order, allowed the appeal, and restored the complaint to the trial court (Chennai) for trial on merits, leaving all of the accused's other defences open to be argued there.

Lesson Learnt

A cheque-bounce complainant is legally permitted to present a dishonoured cheque more than once (within its validity period) and to base a criminal complaint on the second or a later dishonour and notice, even if an earlier notice already specified the same amount: this is not treated as an abuse of process.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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