Allahabad High Court
Raj Bahadur Singh vs State Of U.P. And Another on 15 September, 2022
Bench: Saurabh Shyam Shamshery
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?Court No. - 84
Case :- APPLICATION U/S 482 No. - 11185 of 2022
Applicant :- Raj Bahadur Singh
Opposite Party :- State of U.P. and Another
Counsel for Applicant :- Manoj Kumar
Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A.
Hon'ble Saurabh Shyam Shamshery,J.
The applicant herein is a complainant in Complaint Case No. 412 of 2016 which is filed against opposite party No.2.
Sri Manoj Kumar, learned counsel for applicant submits that despite opposite party No.2 has appeared, however, till date the complaint is not decided finally and complaint case has been adjourned on many dates without any effective hearing.
This is against the mandate of Section 143 (3) of N.I. Act which requires that such trial shall be conducted as expeditiously as possible and endeavour shall be made to conclude the trial within six months from the date of filing of complaint.
Recently, Supreme Court in case of Re -: Expeditious trial of cases under Section 138 N.I. Act, 1881 (Suo Moto Writ Petition (Crl.) No. 2 of 2020) reported in 2021 SCC Online SC 325 has passed directions which are mentioned hereinbelow :-
"24.The upshot of the above discussion leads us to the following conclusions:
1) The High Courts are requested to issue practice directions to the Magistrates to record reasons before converting trial of complaints under Section 138 of the Act from summary trial to summons trial.
2) Inquiry shall be conducted on receipt of complaints under Section 138 of the Act to arrive at sufficient grounds to proceed against the accused, when such accused resides beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the court.
3) For the conduct of inquiry under Section 202 of the Code, evidence of witnesses on behalf of the complainant shall be permitted to be taken on affidavit. In suitable cases, the Magistrate can restrict the inquiry to examination of documents without insisting for examination of witnesses.
4) We recommend that suitable amendments be made to the Act for provision of one trial against a person for multiple offences under Section 138 of the Act committed within a period of 12 months, notwithstanding the restriction in Section 219 of the Code.
5) The High Courts are requested to issue practice directions to the Trial Courts to treat service of summons in one complaint under Section 138 forming part of a transaction, as deemed service in respect of all the complaints filed before the same court relating to dishonour of cheques issued as part of the said transaction.
6) Judgments of this Court inAdalat Prasad(supra) andSubramanium Sethuraman(supra) have interpreted the law correctly and we reiterate that there is no inherent power of Trial Courts to review or recall the issue of summons. This does not affect the power of the Trial Court under Section 322 of the Code to revisit the order of issue of process in case it is brought to the court's notice that it lacks jurisdiction to try the complaint.
7) Section 258 of the Code is not applicable to complaints under Section 138 of the Act and findings to the contrary inMeters and Instruments(supra) do not lay down correct law. To conclusively deal with this aspect, amendment to the Act empowering the Trial Courts to reconsider/recall summons in respect of complaints under Section 138 shall be considered by the Committee constituted by an order of this Court dated 10.03.2021.
8) All other points, which have been raised by the Amici Curiae in their preliminary report and written submissions and not considered herein, shall be the subject matter of deliberation by the aforementioned Committee. Any other issue relating to expeditious disposal of complaints under Section 138 of the Act shall also be considered by the Committee."
In view of above discussion and mandate as well as direction passed by the Supreme Court in the case of Re :- Expeditious trial (supra), the Court concerned is directed to conclude the trial on aforesaid complaint expeditiously, preferably within a period of two months from today.
The application stands disposed of.
Order Date :- 15.9.2022
Nirmal Sinha
(Serial No. 10 of 400 fresh cases)
