The period of one month for filing a complaint under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, will be reckoned from the day immediately following the day on which the period of 15 days from the date of receipt of the first notice by the drawer expires.

( 1 ) THIS is an application under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure filed at the instance of M/s. Veteran company Pvt. Ltd. and anr. , as petitioners seeking to quash the proceeding under Section 138 of N. I. Act initiated before the Court of the Ld. Judicial Magistrate, 1st Class, tamluk alleging mainly that the case, as made out by the de facto complainant, is hit by the law of limitation as upon receipt of an intimation from the concerned bank with regard to the bouncing of the cheque in question, the complainant issued notice to the petitioner on 22-6-2001 and the said notice was received by the said petitioner in june, 2001, but suppressing the material facts, the complainant has issued a second ; notice to save the law of limitation which is not permissible under the law and that though the complainant has initiated the instant criminal proceeding by impleading the company itself and the directors of the company, yet, in the four corners of the petition of complaint, there is no clear averment for invoking the provisions of Section 141 of the N. I. Act or in other words, it has not been quite clearly spelt out in the petition of complaint that the other persons impleaded in the petition of complaint were persons in charge of and/or responsible for the day to day affairs of the company in the matter of management and affairs of the company.

( 2 ) THE present petitioners on receipt of the summons in the aforesaid case have approached this Court seeking to quash the aforesaid proceeding on the aforesaid premises.

( 3 ) THIS prayer, however, has been seriously opposed on behalf of the de facto complainant/opposite party alleging that whether or not earlier any notice was issued in connection with this case, being not an admitted fact, it should be left open to be decided in course of trial after taking evidence in connection with this case and since the question whether or not such notice was issued will certainly be a question of fact and that could only be decided during trial on merit after taking evidence.

( 4 ) IT has further been contended on behalf of the opposite party that petitioner No. 2 has been described in the petition of complaint as director of the company itself and taking into consideration the above fact together with the averments made in Paragraph 2 as also in the Paragraph 5 of the complaint petition, it would be crystal clear that they were in charge and were responsible for the business of the company and as such quashing, as prayed for, is not permissible in the instant case.

( 5 ) SRI Moitra, Id. advocate appearing for the petitioner drawing my attention to a decision reported in AIR 1998 SC 3043 : 1998 cri LJ 4066 in the case of Sadanandan bhadran v. Madhavan Sunil Kumar has contended before me that although in the instant case, first notice was given on 22-6- 2001 demanding the cheque amount and it was duly received by the petitioner during the same month, yet, suppressing the aforesaid feet, complainant again issued another notice for the second time on 18th August, 2001 to save the rigour of limitation.

( 6 ) IN this connection, Sri Moitra has further contended that in the supplementary affidavit, his client has also annexed another notice dated 7th July, 2001 issued by the id. advocate for the complainant admitting therein that similar notice of demand in terms of Section 138 (2) of the N. I. Act was sent to the petitioner No. 2 on 22nd June, 2001 stating further that the cheque was earlier presented on 12-6-2001 which was dishonoured on 13 June, 2001 and thereafter notice was also issued on 22nd June 2001 and in this context, it has further been contended that since first notice dated 22nd june, 2001 was duly served upon Managing Director it does not lie in the mouth of the complainant to say that the first notice dated 22nd June, 2001 was not served upon the Director of the company and thereafter the complainant to avoid rigour of limitation has issued the s