Srinagar, October 13, KDC: A court in Srinagar has convicted a man in a cheque-bounce case under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, sentencing him to three months’ simple imprisonment and imposing a fine of ₹3 lakh, payable to the complainant.
The court further directed that, in the event of non-payment, the District Magistrate, Srinagar, shall identify the convict’s movable or immovable properties and initiate their attachment and sale in accordance with law to recover the amount awarded to the complainant.
The order was passed by Judicial Magistrate Vikas Bhardwaj, presiding over the court of the 2nd Additional Munsiff/Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMIC), Srinagar. The court also directed that a docket be issued to the in-charge of Central Jail, Srinagar, for compliance with the sentence.
The convict was identified as Pirzada Iftikar Ahmad. The complaint was filed by Mohammad Yousuf Shiekh, a resident of Newa, Pulwama, who had advanced ₹2 lakh to Iftikar as a cash credit advance to support his fruit and apple business.
To repay the amount, Iftikar issued two cheques of ₹1 lakh each, drawn on his account at Jammu and Kashmir Bank’s Shiraz Cinema Branch, Khanyar. The cheques, bearing Nos. 021034 and 021035 and dated January 29, 2019, and February 7, 2019, respectively, were returned unpaid with the endorsement “Funds Insufficient”, as recorded in a bank memo dated February 27, 2019.
Shiekh subsequently issued a statutory demand notice on March 27, 2019, seeking payment of the cheque amounts. After the demand went unheeded, he instituted the complaint.
During the trial, the defence argued that the cheques were not issued in connection with any direct financial transaction between the accused and the complainant. Instead, it claimed that they related to a proposed land transaction at Dumana, Jammu, involving third parties Bachnu Devi and Gulzar Hussain.
However, during cross-examination, Iftikar admitted that the cheques belonged to his bank account, bore his signatures and had the complainant’s name written as payee by him. He also admitted that he had neither issued instructions to stop payment nor replied to the statutory demand notice.
Assessing the evidence, the court held that the accused’s admission regarding the execution of the cheques attracted the statutory presumptions under Sections 118(a) and 139 of the Negotiable Instruments Act in favour of the complainant.
Rejecting the defence as unsupported by contemporaneous documentary evidence, the magistrate observed: “The inconsistent defence, unsupported by contemporaneous documentary material, cannot outweigh the statutory presumptions coupled with the admissions of the accused regarding execution of the cheques.”
The court held that the accused had failed to raise a probable defence to rebut the statutory presumptions and that the complainant had established the ingredients of the offence beyond reasonable doubt.
