IMPORTANT POINT
While demanding payment by issuing a notice under 138 (b) of Negotiable Instruments Act, payee or holder in due course must demand payment of amount covered by cheque and plea that amount mentioned in notice was a typographical error cannot rectify the defect.

R. Ramanujam, J. - This Criminal Petition is filed under Section 482 Cr. P.C. seeking quashing of the proceedings in Calendar Case No 591 of 1998, pending on the file of the XV Metropolitan Magistrate, Hyderabad.

2. The petitioner herein is the sole accused in the said Calendar Case, which was instituted on the complaint given by the 1st respondent herein to punish the petitioner for the offence under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act (for short "the Act").

3. The case of the 1st respondent complainant is that towards discharge of equated monthly instalments of the loan payable by the petitioner-accused, he issued a cheque dated 1-5-1998 for Rs. 9,972/-. When that cheque was presented to the drawee bank for realization, it was returned with an endorsement "insufficiency of funds" by memo dated 12-5-1998. Immediately, the complainant issued a legal notice on 19-5-1998 calling upon the petitioner to pay the amount. Since there was no response from the petitioner, the complaint was filed. Along with the complaint a copy of the notice issued by the complainant was also filed.

4. After taking cognizance of the offence, the learned Magistrate issued process to the petitioner. Thereupon, he filed a discharge petition, which was dismissed by the learned Magistrate. The petitioner then filed the present petition.

5. The main contention advanced by the learned Counsel for the petitioner Sri G. Narendra Raju, is that in the notice issued to the petitioner under Section 138(b) of the Act the amount that was demanded is not the amount covered by the cheque, which was dishonoured. Since the requirement of Section 138(b) of the Act is thus not satisfied the proceedings are liable to be quashed in support of his contention, the learned Counsel relied upon the decision of the Supreme Court Suman Sethi v. Ajay K. Churiwal and another1 and also the decision of the Kerala High Court in Raj v. Rajan2.

6. Counsel for the 1st Respondent complainant, Sri Raghunandan, strongly disputed the aforesaid contention.

7. In Kusum Ingots and Alloys Ltd. v. Pennar Peterson Securities Ltd.3 the Supreme Court held that the ingredients, which are to be satisfied for making out a case under Section 138 of the Act are:

(i) a person must have drawn a cheque on an account maintained by him in a bank for payment of a certain amount of money to another person from out of that account for the discharge of any debt or other liability;

(ii) that cheque has been presented to the bank within a period of six months from the date on which it is drawn or within the period of its validity whichever is earlier;

(iii) that cheque is returned by the bank unpaid either because of the amount of money standing to the credit of the account is insufficient to honour the cheque or that it exceeds the amount arranged to be paid from that account by an agreement made with the bank;

(iv) the payee or the holder in due course of the cheque makes a demand for the payment of the said amount of money by giving a notice in writing to the drawer of the cheque within 15 days of the receipt of information by him from the bank regarding the return of the cheque as unpaid;

(v) the drawer of such cheque fails to make payment of the said amount of money to the payee or the holder in due course of the cheque within 15 days of the receipt of the said notice" .

8. From the aforementioned legal position, it is clear that one of the main ingredients of Section 138 of the Act is demanding payment of the cheque amount by the payee or holder in due course after the cheque was dishonoured. Section 138(b) further mandates that the demand for payment must be for the "said amount of money".

9. Now the question is what exactly the meaning of the word "said amount of money". This has been considered by the -Supreme Court in Suman Sethi (supra), wherein their Lordships held at para 6 of the report thus:

"We have to ascertain the meaning of the wo