AGALYA JITENDRA AND OTHERS Vs. ARIVALAGI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS order shall govern these three criminal original petitions. They are filed by the petitioners, aggrieved over the orders of the Principal District Munsif -cum -Judicial Magistrate No.1, Srivilliputhur, allowing three criminal miscellaneous petitions filed by the respondent/complainant in three Calendar Cases in C.C.Nos.112, 113 and 114 of 2003 to condone the delay of 12 days in lodging the private complaints under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act.

(2.) THE learned Judicial Magistrate in view of the reasons adduced therein, allowed those three petitions. Thus, those three Calendar Cases were taken cognizance under the provisions of the Negotiable Instruments Act. Aggrieved over the said orders, these criminal original petitions have been brought forth in order to set aside the same.

(3.) THE prime contention put forth by the learned counsel for the petitioners before this Court is that the lower Court should not have allowed the petitions without giving an opportunity to the petitioners/accused; and that the lower Court before allowing the petitions, should have ordered notice to them and should have allowed the petitioners to put forth their objections, and that too, in a case where proper and sufficient reasons as one contemplated under Section 142 of the Negotiable Instruments Act were made. Added further the learned counsel that if an opportunity was given to the petitioners, they should have put forth their objections effectively; that the lower Court should have also gone into the question as to the sufficiency of the case put forth by the complainant; that in the instant case, there remained a vested right with the accused, and under the circumstances, there should have been an opportunity given to the accused, without which, the lower Court should not have allowed the petitions, and hence, the orders of the lower Court have got to be set aside.