Section 138 NI Act: Company can be added under Section 319 CrPC if it was earlier not made an accused [Read the Order]

Recently, Supreme Court has upheld an order of the Delhi High Court whereby addition of company as accused in a cheque bounce case was accepted through Section 319 CrPC.

A bench of Justice Sapre and Justice Malhotra has passed the order in the case titled as M Tech Developers Pvt. Ltd. vs State of NCT of Delhi on 30.07.2019.

Supreme Court observed "Having   heard   the   learned   counsel   for   the parties and on perusal of the record of the case, we are   not   inclined   to   interfere   with   the   impugned order passed by the High Coourt". 

It then observed and held "In our view, the reasoning and the conclusion arrived at by the High Court does not call for any interference. The   Special   Leave   Petition   is accordingly dismissed".

Earlier, the matter was dealt with by the Delhi High Court in the case titled as Sarabjit Singh vs State on 08.10.2019.

Delhi High Court had noted "In the complaint, reference was made to the company as an accused. It appears that under some confusion, inadvertently the name of the company was omitted from the array of accused. The complainant had brought an application immediately, in 2008 itself, to make suitable correction. By the time, the said application came up for consideration, the summoning order had already been passed. Since the Magistrate did not have the power of review, there was some difficulty in entertaining the said request at that stage. This is why liberty was granted while permitting the first application under Section 319 Cr. PC to be withdrawn for such application to be moved again. The application on which the order was passed by the Metropolitan Magistrate which was set aside by the revisional court, was an application moved in exercise of such liberty".

It then observed "Since the evidence which has come on record does show the complicity of the second respondent in the crime, the cheques in question having been issued against its account, it having received the notice of demand and not having made any payment in response thereto satisfying the claim of the complainant arising out of the said cheques, the exercise of jurisdiction by the Metropolitan Magistrate under Section 319 Cr. PC could and should not have been interfered with by the revisional court".

Read the High Court Order here:

Read the Supreme Court Order here:

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