Madhya Pradesh High Court has restored a cheque bounce case which was dismissed by the trial court for failure in depositing the process fee.
A bench of Justice Mishra has passed the order in the case titled as Maneesh Jain v. Saurabh Jain on 01.10.2019.
Complaint was made under Sec. 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act before the JMFC, Ashoknagar which was rejected on 7.12. 2017 against which a revision has been preferred by the petitioner before District and Sessions Judge, Ashoknagar which was registered as Revision No. 3/2018. The learned Sessions court has issued notices for presence of the respondents for which process fees was required to be deposited by the petitioner but despite of repeated opportunity being granted to the petitioner the same was not deposited and vide order dated 28.1. 2019 the revision was rejected.
High Court observed "From the perusal of the record, it is seen that the complaint filed by the petitioner under Sec. 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act has been dismissed for non-compliance of the orders passed by the learned trial court as there was specific direction of deposition of court fees, however, despite several opportunities being granted to the petitioner process fee was not deposited and finally the case was dismissed".
High Court then observed and held "It is seen from the record that for non payment of process fee, the criminal case was been dismissed in default and there is no orders on merits of the case. The process fee was required to be deposited by the counsel for the parties and for fault of counsel party cannot be made to suffer as has been held by Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of M.K. Prasad v. P. Armugam reported in AIR 2001 SC 2497 and Rafiq and Ors. v Munshilal reported in AIR 1980 SC 1400 Thus considering the aforesaid law laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, this court deems it fit to allow this petition and restores Criminal Revision No. 3/2018 subject to payment of cost of Rs. 15,00/- to be deposited in Legal Aid Service, Gwalior".
Read the Order here:
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