K. Harilal, J.

1. In all the above revision petitions, the revision petitioner and the respondents are one and the same and the impugned judgments, which confirmed the conviction and the sentence imposed on the revision petitioner in prosecutions under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, (for short 'the N.I. Act') are under challenge. Since a common question of law is involved in all these revision petitions and the parties are the same, these revision petitions were heard jointly and disposed of in a common order as under.

2. The revision petitioner is the second accused in C.C. Nos. 283/97, 281/97 and 282/97 on the files of the Judicial First Class Magistrate's Court-II, Kochi, filed by the 2nd respondent herein. The first accused is a firm and the second accused is its Managing Partner. The facts of all these cases are also similar. The complainant is a shipping company and the first accused company is a customer. The complainant's case in all the cases can be summarised as follows: (The parties are referred to as in the complaint.) Towards freight charges due from the first accused, the first accused firm had issued three cheques for the amounts of Rs.1,87