Couple of years before I entered in to a Notarized MOU with a small land development company and has given amount for purchase of plots under regular income buy back scheme. One proprietor signed the MOU and the other proprietor signed the postdated checks of buy back offer and interim income checks, which were issued to me. Later I found the company proprietors cheated number of folks in such offers and my check bounced back with reason "Funds Insufficient"
Meanwhile we approached police and a recorded a complaint under 420. The accused was arrested and later release on bail. Later I do not know if the proprietor any time opened company office or not.
In between I started educating my self about 138 NI Act and thanks to this forum which helped me to get basic awareness. I sent notice for payment on my own addressed as below
To
Company Name,
Company address as per MOU
Kind Atten: Name of Proprietors (A,B,C)
Respected Proprietors
Notice as per standard format.
The notice came back with postal remarks Left.
Then I approached a lawyer to take this case forward to file 138 case.
My lawyer is pointing out a gap in my later,
1) According to him I should have sent a separate note to Proprietors on their address as mentioned in court for bail to give them a notice. They are saying the accused can raise the hands that they did not received a notice as it was not sent to them but to company address which they have left.
I respect his knowledge and I understand I might have done a mistake, but I am not logically convinced.
My viewpoint is, I have entered in to MOU with a Company and proprietors sign it and even the checks were signed by proprietors and the check numbers are mentioned in the MOU. I have not done a personal agreement in this situation. Also there is absolutely no communication from proprietors since a complain of 420 was logged against them about the office operation or change in address. Hence eventhough they might have given the personal address during bail in 420 case, in my view when the check bounced I have sent the letter to Company office address which is as per MOU with Kind Atten as proprietors should suffix.
I am planning to make all 3 proprietors as accused in this case and I feel I should not be bound to send the letter on their personal address. I think as proprietors of company they should have provided written intimation if there is any change in address and they can not close office unless all matters are resolved.
I am debating this with my own lawyer and need your experts inputs to understand if I have done a mistake here.
Regards,
Sanjay
