The Himachal Pradesh High Court in, Alam Chand v. Chaman Lal, on an application u/s 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as “Cr.P.C.”) set aside the conviction of the petitioner under S. 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (hereinafter referred to as “NI Act”), on account of a compromise entered between the parties.
Facts:
The Respondent initiated proceedings against the petitioner u/s 138 of the NI Act for the dishonor of the cheque before the trial court. The court convicted the petitioner and the appeal to the said conviction was rejected by the Session Court on 28.02.2020 as well as the High Court on 15.06.2022. After passing the judgement dated 15.06.2022, the parties entered into a compromise and the petitioner approached the court under S. 482 Cr.P.C. r/w S. 147 of NI Act seeking compounding of offence. The respondent admitted that a compromise has been entered and has made no objection in case prayer made for compounding the offence is accepted and the petitioner is acquitted of the offence.
Court’s Observation:
The Court placed reliance on the judgement passed by Himachal Pradesh High Court in Gulab Singh v. Vidya Sagar Sharma, which relied on several authorities, wherein it was stated that the court while exercising power under S. 147 of the Act can proceed to compound offence even in those cases, where accused stands convicted. Furthermore, in K. Subramaniam v. R. Rajathi, the Supreme Court held that given the provisions contained under S. 147 of the Act, r/w S. 320 of Cr. P.C., compromise arrived inter se the parties, can be accepted and offence committed under S. 138 of the Act, can be ordered to be compounded.
Reliance was also placed on Damodar S. Prabhu V. Sayed Babalal H., to observe that while exercising power under S. 147 of the Act, can proceed to compound the offence even after the recording of conviction by the courts below. After relying on the authorities, the court permitted the matter to get the matter compounded in the light of the compromise arrived.
The decision of the Court:
The conviction was thus set aside, and the petitioner was acquitted.
Case Title: Alam Chand v. Chaman Lal
Coram: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sandeep Sharma
Case No: Cr. MMO No. 1232 of 2022
Advocate for Petitioner: Mr. Mohar Singh
Advocate for Respondent: Mr. Sandeep K Sharma, Anup Rattan, Sudhir Bhatnagar
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