Thomas J.—Can a company escape from penal liability under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act (for sort “the NI Act”) on the premise that a petition for winding up of the company has been presented and was pending during the relevant time? A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court held that the company cannot avert its liability on the mere ground that such a petition was presented prior to the company being called upon by a notice to pay the amount of the cheque. By holding so, the Division Bench dismissed a batch of writ petitions filed by different companies challenging the criminal proceedings initiated against them in different criminal courts for the offence under Section 138 of the NI Act. We have now to deal with the same question in this batch of appeals filed by special leave.

2. Though different cases now before us have differing facts we are not bothering ourselves with such differences. The common features in all the appeals, which alone are relevant for dealing with the afore­said question, can be culled out from one of the appeals. The company involved in the said sample appeal will be referred to as “the Compa­ny”. The cheque which the company issu