Crl. Revision No. 1402 of 2010 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Crl. Revision No. 1402 of 2010 Date of Decision: October 4, 2010 Kashmir Singh ........Petitioner Versus State of Punjab and another ........Respondents ****** CORAM : HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE SABINA Present: None for the petitioner. SABINA, J. None has appeared on behalf of the petitioner. On the last date also none had appeared on behalf of the petitioner. The complaint was filed against the petitioner by respondent No.2 under section 138 of the Negotiable Instrument Act, 1881 (in short 'the Act'). The trial court convicted the petitioner under Section 138 of the Act and sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one year and a fine of Rs.5,000/-. Appeal filed by the petitioner against the said judgment/order of conviction and sentence was dismissed by the Appellate Court vide order dated 13.2.2010. The learned Appellate Court in paras 11 and 12 of its judgment has held as under :- “11. It is admitted case of the accused that cheque Ex. C2 duly signed by him was handed over by him to the complainant. Although, it is alleged that the said cheque when given to the complainant, was blank because it was given as security at the Crl. Revision No. 1402 of 2010 2 time of granting loan by the complainant but there is not an iota of material on record from which it can be said that such cheque was given by the accused as security. From the higher purchase agreement Ex. CW2/1 it is clear that loan was advanced to the accused 20.01.1999, where as the cheque in question was issued by the accused on 10.07.2000. Till 10.07.2000, there was no complaint from the side of the accused that he had issued blank cheque to the complainant or that he was forced to do so at the time of advancement of loan to him. Although DW-1 Surjit Singh deposed that such cheque was received from the accused by the complainant at the time of advancement of loan but during his cross examination, he failed to tell the date, month and year of advancement of loan to the accuse by the complainant. He also could not tell whether such loan was advanced to the accused. He was also not aware about the address of complainant finance company. He further deposed that he was not aware about the name of the bank and the account from which such blank cheque was issued by the accused. He also could not tell whether the complainant got signatures of the accused. Once DW1 Surjit Singh was unable to tell as these material facts, which should have been into his knowledge, had he been present at the time of advancement of loan by the complainant to the accused, it cannot be believed that such cheque was handed over by the accused to the complainant in his presence at any point of time. Hence, testimony of DW-1 Surjit Singh has been rightly discarded by Crl. Revision No. 1402 of 2010 3 the learned trial court. 12. On the other hand, it is validly proved by the complainant that in order to discharge his legal liability accused issued Cheque Ex. C-2 dated 10.07.2000 to the complainant. It is proved form memo Ex. C4 dated 24.08.2000 that such cheque was presented for encashment, but it was received back by the complainant as dishonoured with remarks of insufficient funds in the account of accused. Despite issuance of notice dated 2.9.2000 and despite its receipts the accused failed to make payment of such dishonoured cheque within the statutory period and thus the learned Trial Court rightly concluded that the complainant was able to prove charge under Section 138 of the Act beyond reasonable doubt. The learned counsel for the appellant has not been able to pin point any lacuna or illegality in the well reasoned judgment of the learned Trial Court. Hence, finding no merit in the appeal, the same is dismissed. Trial Court file be returned alongwith copy of this judgment. File be consigned to the record.” The reasons given by the trial Court while convicting the petitioner under Section 138 of the Act and the Appellate Court while dismissing the appeal filed by the petitioner are sound reasons and call for no interference. Accordingly, this petition is dismissed. (SABINA) October 4, 2010 JUDGE Anand