IMPORTANT POINT
Dishonour of cheques – Non-existence of any enforceable debt or other liability strikes at root of prosecution case.

JUDGMENT :

ANIRUDDHA BOSE, J.

The common petitioner in these four petitions for special leave to appeal is a partnership firm dealing in iron and steel products. The petitioner has assailed a common judgment of the High Court of Judicature at Calcutta, by which the petitioner’s appeal against acquittal of the first respondent in respect of offences under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instrument Act, 1881 (“1881 Act”) has been dismissed. The petitioner, through its partner, Ramesh Kumar Gupta, had lodged four complaint cases under the aforesaid provision, after four cheques, alleged to have been issued by the accused/respondent no.1, were dishonoured on the ground of insufficiency of funds. The petitioner claims that these cheques were issued between 07.11.2008 and 24.11.2008, drawn on the Axis Bank Limited, Burra Bazar in Kolkata. The relevant particulars regarding these four cheques, as per the petitioner’s case, are reproduced in the following table:-

2. Four independent complaint cases were lodged in the Court of the Metropolitan Magistrate, Kolkata by the petitioner and were registered as CC Nos.34905, 34906, 34907 and 34908 of 2009 respectively. The petitioner contended before the Trial Court that it had granted financial assistance to the accused/respondent no.1 and the said cheques were issued by the accused/respondent no.1 in discharge of her liability towards the petitioner. The petitioner/complainant had issued a statutory demand notice dated 04.05.2009, which was duly served upon the accused/respondent no. 1 on 20.05.2009, but the accused neither complied with the requisition as contained therein, nor gave any reply thereto. To further substantiate its case, the petitioner/complainant also relied upon the testimony of its partner, Ramesh Kumar Gupta.

3. The accused/respondent no.1 had taken the defence that the petitioner had not provided any financial assistance, but money was advanced to the accused/respondent no.1 for undertaking stock market related transactions through her account. She deposed as a defence witness and her specific stand in her examination-in-chief was that the complainant wanted to trade in the futures and options segment of the stock market and since the complainant did not want his family members to know about it, he had chosen to speculate through her account. Though the complainant was a partnership firm, by referring to the complainant using the pronoun “he” or “him”, she alluded to Ramesh Kumar Gupta only, with whom, the arrangements were given effect to. According to her, in this process, many cheques were exchanged to settle profit and loss and on good faith, according to her, the complainant also used to keep certain blank cheques signed by her which were to be deposited as and when the complainant had profit. It also transpired in course of hearing before the Trial Court that there was an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (“CBI”), in relation to which respondent no.1 had been chargesheeted and in a search and seizure action, some cheque-books of the respondent no.1 were also seized. As an explanation to her non-reply to the petitioner’s demand notice, the respondent no.1 had submitted that she was expecting a child during that period and the child was born on 27.05.2009.

4. The defence case, in essence, was that the cheques, the dishonour of which is the subject of this proceeding, were neither issued nor handed over to the complainant, but these were illegally procured by t