The cheque is stated to have been presented / dishonoured in Mumbai accordingly Mumbai court has the jurisdiction to entertain complaint, try and punish the drawer of the cheque.
How Noida courts can assume and invoke jurisdiction ?
By a landmark judgment, Dashrath Roopsingh Rathod Vs. Stae of Maharashtra & Anr.
In this case, the Supreme Court has changed the basic criteria under Section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act which is to prosecute a person who had presented the cheque which had been returned due to insufficiency of funds or if the amount exceeds the amount in the bank of the payer.
Earlier, a case under Section 138 could be initiated by the holder of the cheque at his place of business or residence. But, a bench of justices TS Thakur, Vikramjit Sen and C Nagappan ruled that the case has to be initiated at the place where the branch of the bank on which the cheque was drawn is located.
And the judgment would apply retrospectively. This means, lakhs of cases pending in various courts across the country would witness a interstate transfer of cheque bouncing cases.
The bench said: “In this analysis, we hold that the place, situs or venue of judicial inquiry and trial of the offence must logically be restricted to where the drawee bank is located.”
Example: Mr. X who resides in Chennai owes Rs. 1 Lakh to Mr. B who resides in Chandigarh, Mr. X issues a cheque in delhi in favour of Mr. B. The cheque bounces in Ludhiana (place of bank where the cheque is given by Mr. B) for insufficiency of funds.
According to the earlier law Mr. X could have chosen any of the four places. But by the recent judgment the only place for institution of case would be Ludhiana, i.e. where the cheque has dishonored at the payee bank which is located in Ludhiana in this example.
Reasons for passing the new law
The rationale behind this change is that the payers majority being businessmen and traders were using extending credit recklessly and due to the leniency in the provision of Section 138, it was being misused in regards to the place of institution, as sometime the payer had no concern with the place where the cheque was issued and to unnecessarily harass the payee cause hardship of place of institution of case according to their convenience. To curb this practice this judgment aims to get to the root of the issue and resolve it by a strict approach so as to discourage the payer from misusing or carelessly issuing cheques. The hardship of traveling to the location of drawee bank is now on the payer.
The change in the existing law shifts the inconvenience and hardship on the payer because now he would have to travel to the place of the drawee bank where the cheque gets dishonored due to insufficiency of funds. Hence, guaranteeing more precaution by the payer at the time of issuing the cheque.
Case cited by learned advocate Mr. Vipin Rana has not been accepted and TP has been dismissed by Apex Court and maintained that Agra courts has the jurisdiction
