NEENA CHOPRA Vs. MAHENDRA SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 filed by the petitioner seeks quashing of Complaint Case No.4668/08 instituted against her by respondent No. 1 for offence under section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 ("NI Act" for brevity).

(2.) A legal question that calls for an answer in this petition is whether the legal heirs of the signatory to the cheque are criminally liable to be proceeded against for offence under section 138 of NI Act.

(3.) A plain reading of statutory provisions of Section 138 extracted above would show that the beneficiary of the cheque can proceed for offence under section 138 only against a person who had issued the cheque which was returned unpaid on account of insufficiency of funds. In the opinion of this Court, criminal liability is not transferred to the descendants or legal heirs of the person who had issued the cheque being the subject matter of complaint under section 138 of NI Act. I draw strength to support my view in this regard from a judgment of Rajasthan High Court which is directly on the point in issue and that judgment is in the case of Draupadi Bai alias Maya Sippi vs. State of Rajasthan, 2000 (3) Crimes 645.