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Rohitbhai Jivanlal Patel v. State of Gujarat & Anr.

Criminal Appeal · 2019 INSC 393Decided 15 Mar 2019
Criminal Appeal No. 508 of 2019
Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre · Justice Dinesh Maheshwari

Background

The complainant alleged that he had lent Rs. 22.5 lakh to the appellant, a trader of edible spices, after they became friends through a mutual acquaintance, and that the appellant repaid this through 7 cheques of Rs. 3 lakh each, along with a written acknowledgment on stamped paper. When the cheques were presented, they bounced for reasons such as "insufficient balance" or "account closed," and the appellant denied having any money transaction with the complainant, claiming the cheques and stamp paper had instead been fraudulently misused by the mutual friend. The trial court acquitted the appellant in all 7 cases, but the Gujarat High Court reversed this on appeal, convicted him under Section 138 of the NI Act, and sentenced him to a year's imprisonment plus a fine of double the cheque amount in each case (totalling about Rs. 42 lakh), with compensation to the complainant.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court upheld the conviction, holding that once a cheque and the signature on it are admitted, the law presumes (under Sections 118 and 139 of the NI Act) that it was issued for a legally enforceable debt, and it is for the accused to rebut this presumption on a preponderance of probabilities, which the appellant had failed to do, since he led no evidence to support his bare denial and alternate theory. However, considering the cumulative severity of imprisonment across all 7 connected cheque cases (potentially amounting to the appellant being jailed in each), the Court partly allowed the appeal on sentence alone: it kept the conviction and fine (double the cheque amount, Rs. 6 lakh per cheque) intact but modified the sentence to give the appellant one more chance to pay the fine within two months, with imprisonment only as a default consequence if he failed to pay, and directed that any such default sentences run concurrently rather than consecutively.

Lesson Learnt

In cheque-bounce cases, simply denying the transaction is not enough, once the accused admits the cheque and signature, the law presumes a legal debt behind it, and the burden shifts to the accused to actually prove otherwise with evidence; courts may still moderate the punishment (e.g., converting it into a fine-with-default-imprisonment, run concurrently) where a person faces multiple related cheque cases arising from the same underlying debt.

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

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