Supreme Court has directed trial of cheque bounce case and fraud case in one court to avoid contradictory judgment. The order was passed by a bench of Justice L. Nageswara Rao and Justice Hemant Gupta.
Facing a cheque bounce case, accused filed a case for fraud and forgery saying that the cheque was misplaced. Complainant of the cheque bounce case then approached the High Court getting the case of fraud & forgery quashed. High Court dismissed the petition. The matter reached to the Supreme Court in a case titled as Shri Pareshbhai Amrutlal Patel vs The State Of Gujarat decided on 28.02.2020.
Supreme Court observed and held as under:
"We find that the issue in both the complaints pertains to cheque No. 567889 which was said to be from the cheque book of the Company of which respondent No. 2 is the officer. The appellants rely upon the said cheque in a complaint for an offence under Section 138 of the NI Act whereas the respondent No.2- complainant alleges that said cheque along with two other cheques had been misplaced which were used by the appellants fraudulently.
The complaint filed by the appellants under Section 138 of the NI Act is earlier in point of time. The complaint filed by respondent No.2 is more than two years later. Since the issue in both the cases revolves around the same cheque, therefore, we find that instead of quashing the FIR No. 3 of 2007, the ends of justice would meet if proceedings arising out of FIR No. 3 of 2007 are transferred to the Court of Judicial Magistrate, Surat, where the proceedings of other complaint under Section 138 of the NI Act are pending so that the complaint filed by the appellants and the proceedings arising out of FIR alleged by respondent No. 2 are decided together to avoid contradictory judgments and to facilitate the issues which are common in both.
Consequently, the appeal is disposed of with the direction that the proceedings arising out of FIR No. 3 of 2007 PS Mehsana shall stand transferred to the Court of Judicial Magistrate, Surat where the proceedings of complaint No. 33537 of 2006 is pending. Both the cases shall be heard and decided together".
Read the Order here:
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