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Sanjabij Tari vs. Kishore S. Borcar & Anr.

Not available · 2025 INSC 1158Decided 25 Sept 2025
Not available
Justice Manmohan · Justice N.V. Anjaria

Background

The complainant had advanced a friendly loan of Rs. 6,00,000 to the accused, who issued a cheque that was later dishonoured. Both the Trial Court and the Sessions Court convicted the accused under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, holding he failed to rebut the statutory presumption that the cheque was issued for a legally enforceable debt. The Goa High Court, in a revision, reversed these concurrent findings and acquitted the accused ex-parte, questioning the complainant's financial capacity to advance such a loan and accepting the accused's defence that a blank signed cheque had merely been given to help him obtain a bank loan.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held the High Court had wrongly upset concurrent factual findings in revisional jurisdiction without any finding of "perversity," which the law does not permit. It reaffirmed that once execution of a cheque is admitted, the presumptions under Sections 118 and 139 of the NI Act arise, and the burden shifts to the accused to disprove the debt with credible evidence, which the accused had not done here. The Court restored the conviction and modified the sentence to a monetary payment of Rs. 7,50,000 in 15 monthly instalments. Separately, taking note of the massive nationwide backlog of cheque-bounce cases, the Court issued an extensive set of procedural directions to trial courts nationwide, covering dasti service of summons, standardized complaint formats, UPI-based payment facilitation, revised compounding-cost guidelines, and dashboard-based monitoring of pendency, to speed up disposal of Section 138 NI Act cases.

Lesson Learnt

Once a person admits signing a cheque, the law presumes it was issued to repay a real debt, and the burden is on that person to prove otherwise with real evidence: a bare denial or an unproven "it was just for a bank loan" story will not be enough to escape liability.

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

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