Tri HC | What is the purpose of a serving a ‘Statutory Notice’ under Negotiable Instruments Act? Detailed analysis of significance of ‘Statutory Presumption’

Tripura High Court: S.G. Chattopadhyay, J., highlights the essence of the provisions of Negotiable Instruments Act, in light of the object of a statutory notice.

It has been stated that the Courts below have concurrently held that the respondent has already established his case under the provisions of Section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act, 1981 against the accused, who is the present petitioner.

The present petitioner was convicted for committing an offence under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act and he/she was penalised for a sentence of 1 year along with a fine of Rs 7,00,000.

Session Judge had also affirmed the above decision of the Chief Judicial Magistrate while reducing the sentence to fine and directing the petitioner to pay only Rs 4,00,000.

Being aggrieved with the above, the present criminal revision petition was filed.

Facts

Since both the petitioner and respondent were on good terms and known to each other, the petitioner used to borrow money from the respondents and repay the same in time. On 15-01-2014, he took a loan of Rs 3,50,000 and promised to repay the money within 30-11-2014.

On being requested for the above-amount, past the said date, petitioner handed over a cheque to the respondent but the said cheque was returned with an endorsement “insufficient funds”.

Demand Notice was issued with 15 days of time given for the repayment of the said amount. Every time that the postman visited the house for the service of the demand notice, housemates of the petitioner refused to receive the said letter and said that the petitioner was out of station.

Hence, in view of the above circumstance, the notice was returned to the respondent.

Later the matter reached the trial and the petitioner was convicted under Section 138 NI Act.

Misutilization of the Cheque

Petitioner contended in regard to the cheque that the accused had never issued any cheque in discharge of any debt or liability, but only a blank cheque was issued as a security for the loan which was borrowed by him from the complainant and after the loan was repaid, the complainant, instead of returning the cheque, misutilized it against him.

Statutory Presumption

Respondent’s counsel submitted that the presumption under Section 139 read with the Rule of Evidence as provided under Section 118, NI Act with regard to the existence of debt or liability is not a discretionary presumption, it is a statutory presumption which is obligatory on the part of the Court. Hence, a heavy burden is cast on the accused to rebut such presumption.

Further, the counsel added that apart from making mere denial of the existence of debt or liability, the accused did not lead any evidence to prove that he had no legal liability to be discharged and as such the courts below had drawn the statutory presumptions against him.

Section 138 NI Act requires proof of the essential ingredients:

• there is legally enforceable debt
• a cheque is drawn on an account maintained by the accused with his banker for payment of any amount to another person from his account in the discharge in whole or in part of the debt or liability
• the cheque is returned by the bank unpaid, either because of the insufficient fund in the account of the accused to honour the cheque or that the cheque amount exceeds the amount arranged to be paid from that account by an agreement made with the bank.

Bench noted that the petitioner in his defence merely offered an explanation throwing suggestion to the prosecution witnesses in their cross-examination that he gave a blank signed cheque as security and did not deny the fact that he borrowed loan from the complainant.

Question for consideration:

In the instant matter, whether such an explanation offered by the petitioner is enough to disprove the statutory presumptions under Sections 138 and 139, NI Act?

In the decision of Hiten P. Dalal v. Bratindranath Banerjee, (2001) 6 SCC 16, Supreme Court that the presumptions to be drawn by the court under Sections 138 and 139, NI Act are presumptions of law which cast the evidential burden on the accused to disprove the presumptions.

Further, in the case of Mallavarapu Kasivisweswara Rao v. Thavikonda Ramulu Firm, (2008) 7 SCC 655, it was held that it is a settled position that the initial burden lies if the accused to prove the non-existence of consideration.

Decision

Bench on perusal of the above held that the explanation offered by the accused petitioner is not founded on proof and it does not stand to reason.

The object of the statutory notice is to protect an honest drawer of the cheque by providing him with a chance to make the fund sufficient in his bank account and correct his mistake.

Accused had an opportunity to explain himself, he instead repeatedly avoided the service of demand notice and did not state that he already has the repayment of the loan.

Therefore, Court held that the prosecution successfully discharged its burden in proving the case against the petitioner with the help of the statutory presumptions under the NI Act, and the accused failed to rebut those presumptions and prove the contrary by offering provable explanation founded on the proof.

Adding to the above, Bench also observed that the overall conduct of the accused depicted that he wanted to avoid the service of the notice. Impugned judgment by the below courts does not require any interference and the conviction and sentence were upheld by the High Court.

Bench directed the fine of Rs 4,00,000 within a period of 2 months.[Nitai Majumder v. Tanmoy Krishna Das, 2020 SCC OnLine Tri 537, decided on 17-11-2020]