Important points" Section 146 of the NI Act, which came into force with effect from 6.2.2003 by Act 55 of 2002 that the memo or slip issued from the Bank is sufficient for taking cognizance for the offence under Section 138 of the N I Act. Therefore, the account details of the accused need not be called for from the bank at the stage of taking cognizance for the offence under Section 138 of the N.I. Act
" The Hon`ble Apex Court in Indian Bank Association and others v. Union of India and others (2014) 5 SCC 590 issued directions to all the criminal courts in the country dealing with Section 138 cases to follow the procedure mentioned in the said judgment for speedy and expeditious disposal of the cases falling under Section 138 of the N.I.Act.

B SUDHEENDRA KUMAR, J.

1. The petitioner is the complainant in C.M.P. No.3050 of 2018 on the files of the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Thodupuzha.

2. The petitioner filed Ext.P1 complaint against the 2nd respondent herein before the court below alleging offence under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act (for short 'the N.I. Act'). Along with the said complaint, the petitioner inter-alia produced Ext.P2 dishonour memo issued by of account of the accused. Aggrieved by the said direction of the court below, the petitioner filed this Original Petition praying for a direction to the court below to act upon Ext.P2 dishonour memo instead of the account details from the Bank for taking cognizance of the offence under Section 138 of the N.I. Act.

3. Service is complete. However, there is no appearance for the 2nd respondent.

4. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned Public Prosecutor.

5. This court called for a report from the court below. The said report of the court below is extracted hereunder:-

“The Hon'ble High Court has directed me to state about the procedure being followed for taking cognizance in 138 Negotiable Instrument Act cases. Hence I am describing the procedure followed by me.

2. As part of 202 Cr.P.C. Inquiry, my learned predecessor used to get a statement of accounts from the drawee bank. Therefore, after taking charge, I also followed the very same procedure:- that is addressing the Bank Manager of the drawee bank to produce the statement of accounts of the accused. But subsequently, I found it inconvenient to address directly the Bank Manager of the drawee bank since the said process was time consuming and many times Bank Managers misunderstanding that it is a summons to appear before court, appeared before court. Hence I used to pass the following order “issue notice to the drawee Bank Manager through complainant to cause production of the statement of account of the accused”. Hence a summons to cause production of the above referred document was used to be handed over to the complainant and the complainant in turn collected the same and produced before court. The said practice was adopted for the purpose of avoiding delay and inconvenience to the parties and banks. Thereafter, after perusing the complaint and available documents, it is decided whether or not there is sufficient ground for proceeding.

3. The said practice became common in 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act cases. Therefore, when a large number of cases are filed together by financing companies like the petitioner in this case the said order very often was used to be written as “for S/Accounts”.”

6. It is clear from the above report that the court below blindly believed that the common practice being followed is to call for the account statement of the accused from the bank before taking cognizance under Section 138 of the N.I. Act. At this juncture, it is relevant to quote Section 146 of the N.I. Act, which is extracted hereunder:-

“Bank's slip prima facie evidence of certain facts. - The Court shall, in respect of every proceeding under this Chapter, on production of bank's slip or memo having thereon the official mark denoting that the cheque has been dishonoured, presume the fact of dishonour of such cheque, unless and until such fact is disproved.”

It is very much clear from Section 146 of the NI Act, which came into force with effect from 6.2.2003 by Act 55 of 2002 that the memo or slip issued from the Bank is sufficient for taking cognizance for the offence under Section 138 of the N I Act. Therefore, the account details of the accused need not be called for from the bank at the stage of taking cognizance for the offence under Section 138 of the N.I. Act. It is surprising to note that eventhough Section 146 of the N.I. Act came into force with effect from 6.2.2003, the learned Magistrate, who is a Chief Judicial Magistrate, had no occasion to learn about the said Section till date. It is also distre