The legal enforceability of debt, time-barred debt, and the presumption under Section 139 of the NI Act are disputed questions of fact, requiring evidence and trial to determine, and should not be decided at the Section 482 stage.

JUDGMENT :

HASMUKH D. SUTHAR, J.

1. Mr. Darsh P. Desai, learned advocate for the applicant has argued at length for about 25 minutes, as he is repeating arguments even after being requested not to do so. While concluding, he referred to citations, but instead of highlighting relevant facts and ratio, he began to read them in entirety. So, the Court asked to the learned advocate first to show the relevancy of the judgment and how it is applicable to the fact of the case on hand, attention drawn towards the law laid down by the Hon’ble Apex Court in the case of Rashmi Metaliks Limited vs. Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority, 2013 (10) SCC 95. Despite time and again efforts to avoid unnecessary time consumption, he continued to do so. Such attitude on the part of the learned advocate is nothing but to waste the precious time of the Court and any how to prolong the matter.

1.1 However, due to lunch break and considering the time consumed by the learned counsel for the petitioner to ward off apprehension of injustice caused on the part of the Court and the petitioner is denied fair and impartial hearing, the learned advocate for the petitioner is once again directed to sum up and conclude his submission within a maximum of 30 minutes. Then the Court has considered only relevant aspects to decide present petitions and ignored irrelevant arguments like execution of sale of agreement, execution of of sale deed and cancellation of deed, etc.

2. Heard learned advocates for the respective parties.

3. Rule. Learned APP waives service of notice of Rule for the respondent-State.

4. By these applications, under Section 482 of the code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 the applicant seeks to invoke the inherent powers of this Court, praying for quashing of the Criminal Case No. 17789 of 2022 and Criminal Case No. 17805 of 2022 pending before the 2nd Additional Civil Judge & JMFC Mirzapur Court Rural NIA Court No. 39, Ahmedabad and all the proceedings arising thereto.

5. It is the case of the petitioner that respondent No. 2 and applicant both were engaged in real estate business and they had good terms. The present applicant is a farmer and respondent No. 2 used to invest his money in partnership with the present applicant, purchasing land, plots, etc. They used to sell the property, earning a profit from the business. Maintaining good business relations, the applicant provided a complete cheque book bearing his own signature on the said cheques from Central Bank of India Naranpura Branch in 2011 to respondent No. 2. Unfortunately, the cheque books were kept somewhere by the respondent No. 2's father and were subsequently not traceable by him. Despite the applicant's repeated requests, the cheque books were not returned, to him with the claim that they were untraceable. Regrettably, the same cheque was misused by respondent No. 2.

6. Learned advocate for the applicant has mainly submitted that the present applicant has nothing to do with the offence and he is falsely implicated in it. The learned advocate primarily raised two grounds: (i) the absence of a legally enforceable debt or liability and time barred debt and (ii) the lack of any dues when the applicant closed the account earlier in the year 2021, followed by the presentation of a cheque dated 21.08.2022 for clearance.

7. Further, it is argued that in the year 2022, there was an IFC Code and a MICR cheque book system in the bank, and prima-facie, the cheque seemed relevant and misused by respondent No. 2. The alleged transactions occurred in 2012, with the record showing a certain amount reflected in the account also. Prima facie, considering the transaction date of 2012 and the cheque's presentation for clearance in 2022, it appears to be time-barred debt which is legally not enforceable. Hence, the complaint is not maintainable under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act (referred to as the “NI Act”) 1881. To buttress his arguments, the learned advocate for the applicant has relied