P DEEPTHA Vs. V S CHANDRASEKARAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition has been filed praying to call for the records in C.C.No.852 of 2002 on the file of the Court of Judicial Magistrate No.I, Coimbatore and quash the same, insofar as the petitioners are concerned.

(2.) The averments of the petition are that the first petitioner is the sister and the second petitioner is her minor brother; that her father and mother were running a Partnership firm under the name and style of 'Sreevari Engineering Traders'; that both the petitioners have admitted the benefits of the aforesaid partnership; that it appears that her father gave a cheque to the respondent herein drawn on The Karur Vysya Bank, Oppanakkara Street, Coimbatore in the year 1998, which was a blank cheque given by way of security and not towards the discharge of any lawful debt or obligation; that the cheque was drawn by the Partnership Firm, represented by her father; that after 2000, her father did not operate the account any more and the account became unused.

(3.) The petitioners would further submit that all of a sudden, in the year 2002, the respondent herein appears to have filled up a fictitious date in the cheque and presented it for collection; that since the transaction for which the said cheque was given as security had already been satisfactorily closed, her father did not bother to check the account, and therefore, the cheque was dishonoured; that the respondent herein issued a notice in this regard on 6.9.2002 and reply was sent by the petitioners on 15.9.2002; that during the first week of December 2002, the petitioners herein received summons in C.C.No.852/2002, which was launched against them under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act by the respondent herein before the Court of Judicial Magistrate No.1, Coimbatore and the first hearing was fixed on 6.1.2003. On such averments, the petitioners would seek for the relief extracted supra on the following grounds:-