Telangana High Court
M.Venkateswarlu vs Ch.Ranga Rao The State Of A.P. on 22 September, 2022
Bench: K.Surender
HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE K.SURENDER
CRIMINAL APPEAL No.933 OF 2008
JUDGMENT:
1. The appellant/complainant aggrieved by the acquittal of
the respondent for the offence under Section 138 of the
Negotiable Instruments Act, which acquittal was recorded by IV
Additional Metropolitan Sessions, Hyderabad in Crl.Appeal
No.511 of 2008 by reversing the judgment of IV Additional Chief
Metropolitan Magistrate Court, Hyderabad in CC No.1171 of
2003 dated 04.12.2007, filed the present appeal.
2. For the sake of convenience, the parties hereinafter will be
referred to as arrayed in the trial court. The case of the
complainant is that the accused was running chits and finance
business and the complainant was the subscriber of the chits.
3. The complainant was successful bidder in one of the chits
and received an amount of Rs.1,38,600/-. The accused
sustained losses in finance business and requested the
complainant to pay the said amount towards hand loan and
believing the same the said amount was given to the accused,
after executing the pronotes. However, in discharge of his
liability, the accused issued a cheque for the said amount and
when the same was presented for clearance, was returned with
an endorsement 'insufficient funds'. A legal notice was sent
asking appellant to pay the amount covered by the cheque.
However, the accused failed to repay the same, for which reason,
complaint was filed.
4. Learned Magistrate found the accused guilty and convicted
the accused. However, in appeal filed by the accused, the learned
Sessions Judge found that P.W.1 admitted that he has received
the amount of Rs.96,000/- under Ex.P6, which is towards the
payment of the chit bearing No.SVL 25 SV 16 for an amount of
Rs.1.00 lakh. Further, the complainant also subscribed to
second chit bearing No.SVL 6 LP 6 for an amount of Rs.1.00 lakh
payable in 40 installments. Exs.D2 to D7 support the said
running of chit. Learned Sessions Judge further found that
P.w.1 admitted that he was not having financial status to
advance the amount as he was working as a welder in a
company on the salary of Rs.8,000/- and further he was also not
an income tax assessee. For the said reasons, the accused has
discharged his burden under Section 139 of the N.I.Act to show
that there was no outstanding amount.
5. The other ground on which the learned Sessions Judge
found that the accused was not guilty is that the statutory notice
was not received by the accused. The acknowledgment card
bears the name of one J.Madhavi and though the notice was
sent to the office address, the accused did not receive the said
notice, but the same was received by one J.Madhavi, for which
reason the Sessions court found that the there is no service of
statutory notice. Though the learned counsel appearing for the
appellant tried to convince that the notice was sent to the
correct address and there is a presumption under section 27 of
General Clauses Act that the notice was served. Since this Court
is not finding any infirmity in the finding of the Sessions Judge
that the appellant had no capacity to lend the amount, there is
no necessity to delve into the fact of service of notice.
6. The appellant has not made out any grounds to suggest
that the findings of the learned Sessions Judge are unreasonable
or that was not based on record. I do not find any grounds to
interfere with the judgment of acquittal.
7. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Radhakrishna
Nagesh v. State of Andhra Pradesh1 held that under the Indian
criminal jurisprudence, the accused has two fundamental
protections available to him in a criminal trial or investigation.
Firstly, he is presumed to be innocent till proved guilty and
secondly that he is entitled to a fair trial and investigation. Both
(2013) 11 supreme court Cases 688
these facets attain even greater significance where the accused
has a judgment of acquittal in his favour. A judgment of
acquittal enhances the presumption of innocence of the accused
and in some cases, it may even indicate a false implication. But
then, this has to be established on record of the Court.
7. Accordingly, Criminal Appeal is dismissed.
_________________
K.SURENDER, J
Date: 22.09.2022
kvs
HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE K.SURENDER
CRIMINAL APPEAL No.933 of 2008
Date: 22.09.2022.
kvs
