LAW FOR ALL

Whether the dishonour of a cheque on the ground that the signatures of the drawer of the cheque do not match the specimen signatures available with the bank, would not attract the penal provisions of Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act.?=Thus, dishonour of cheques simpliciter for the reasons stated in Section 138 of the NI Act although is sufficient for commission of offence since the presumption of law on this point is no longer res integra,Thus although a petition under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. may not be entertained by the High Court for quashing such proceedings,= The instant matter however do not relate to a case of ‘stop payment’ instruction to the bank as the cheque in question had been returned due to mismatching of the signatures but more than that the petitioner having neither raised nor proved to the contrary as envisaged under Section 139 of the NI Act that the cheques were not for the discharge of a lawful debt nor making the payment within fifteen days of the notice assigning any reason as to why the cheques had at all been issued if the amount had not been settled, obviously the plea of rebuttal envisaged under Section 139 does not come to his rescue so as to hold that the same would fall within the realm of rebuttable presumption envisaged under Section 139 of the Act. I, therefore, concur with the judgment and order of learned Brother Justice Thakur subject to my views on the dishonour of cheques arising out of cases of ‘stop payment’ instruction to the bank in spite of sufficiency of funds on account of bonafide dispute between the drawer and drawee of the cheque. This is in view of the legal position that presumption in favour of the holder of a cheque under Section 139 of the NI Act has been held by the NI Act as also by this Court to be a rebuttable presumption to be discharged by the accused/drawee of the cheque which may be discharged even at the threshold where the magistrate examines a case at the stage of taking cognizance as to whether a prima facie case has been made out or not against the drawer of the cheque.