1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH, NAGPUR. CRIMINAL REVISION APPLICATION NO. 5 OF 2011 (Smt. Prabhatai Sureshrao Raghtate .v. Bandu Motiramji Sayankar and another) Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram appearances, Court's orders or directions Court's or Judge's Orders and Registrar's orders. Shri M.B. Naidu, Advocate for the applicant. Shri M.R. Johrapurkar, Advocate for respondent No.1. Smt. A.R. Taywade, APP for respondent No.2/State. CORAM : PRASANNA B. VARALE, J. 31ST MARCH, 2011. Heard. By way of present revision, the applicant has challenged the judgment and order dated 16.1.2010 passed by the learned Extra Joint Ad hoc Additional Sessions Judge, Wardha in Regular Criminal Appeal No. 84/2007 thereby confirming the judgment and order dated 28.07.2007 in Miscellaneous Criminal Case No.3836 of 2003 passed by the learned JMFC, Court No.4, Hinganghat. The matter revolves around the offence punishable under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act. During the pendency of the revision application, an application under Section 147 of Negotiable Instruments Act is presented before this Court. The application is duly signed by the applicant/original accused and non-applicant No.1/original complainant and their respective counsel. Learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the respective parties submit that the parties have arrived at a settlement in view of the intervention of respectable persons and well wishers. It is further submitted that as the parties want to settle the dispute and keep their relations harmonious, they arrived at a settlement thereby the complainant accepting an amount of Rs.60,000/- towards full and final settlement disputes between the parties. It will be useful to refer the observations of the Apex Court in the latest judgment in Damodhar S. Prabhu .vs. Sayed 2 Babalal H. , reported in 2010 (5) Mh.L.J. 172 , on which the learned counsel for the applicant has placed reliance. The Apex Court has observed that :- “12. It is evident that the permissibility of the compounding of an offence is linked to the perceived seriousness of the offence and the nature of the remedy provided. On this point we can refer to the following extracts from an academic commentary [Cited from : K. N. C. Pillai, R. V. Kelkar's Criminal Procedure, 5th Edn. (Lucknow : Eastern Book Company, 2008) at p.444] :- “A crime is essentially a wrong against the society and the State. Therefore, any compromise between the accused person and the individual victim of the crime should not absolve the accused from criminal responsibility. However, where the offences are essentially of a private nature and reatively not quite serious, the Code considers it expedient to recognize some of them as compoundable offences and some others as compoundable only with the permission of the Court. ...”. The Apex Court has further observed that “.... Unlike that for other forms of crime, the punishment here (insofar as the complainant is concerned) is not a means of seeking retribution, but is more a means to ensure payment of money. The complainant's interest lies primarily in recovering the money rather than seeking the drawer of the cheque in jail. The threat of jail is only a mode to ensure recovery. As against the accused who is willing to undergo a jail term, there is little available as remedy for the holder of the cheque.” It is further observed that “It is quite obvious that with respect to the offence of dishonour of cheques, it is the compensatory aspect of the remedy which should be given priority over the punitive aspect.” The parties are personally present in this Court and they agree the fact of the settlement arrived at between them. In view of the submissions of the learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the respective parties and in view of the judgment of the Apex Court referred to above, the application under Section 147 of the Negotiable Instruments Act stands allowed in aforesaid terms. The judgment and order dated 16.1.2010 passed by the learned Extra Joint Ad hoc Additional Sessions Judge, Wardha in Regular Criminal Appeal No. 84/2007 thereby confirming the judgment and order dated 28.07.2007 in Miscellaneous Criminal Case No.3836 of 2003 passed by the learned JMFC, Court No.4, 3 Hinganghat, convicting the applicant to suffer S.I. for one year and to pay fine of Rs.5,000/- in default to suffer further S.I. for two months for the offence punishable under Section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act, is hereby quashed and set aside. In view of the aforesaid order passed in the application under Section 147 of Negotiable Instruments Act presented by the respective parties, no order is necessary to be passed in this revision application. Consequently, Criminal Revision Application No. 05/2011 is disposed of. JUDGE *rrg.