The presumption under Section 139 of the Negotiable Instruments Act mandates that once a cheque's execution is admitted, it is presumed to be issued for discharging a debt, which the accused must rebut.

JUDGMENT :

1. This criminal revision has been filed for setting aside the judgement dated 17th February 2023 passed by the court of learned Sessions Judge, East Singhbhum in Criminal Appeal No. 43 of 2022 dismissing the appeal filed by the petitioner. The petitioner has been convicted and sentenced by the Court of Judicial Magistrate, 1st Class, Jamshedpur for committing offence under section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (hereinafter referred to as N.I. Act) and has been directed to pay Rs. 18,50,000/- as fine amount out of which an amount of Rs. 18,45,000/- has to be given to the complainant as compensation. The petitioner has been sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for one and half year with default sentence.

2. The learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the complainant was working in a bank. In order to get loan, the petitioner was in negotiating term with the complainant and he was informed that certain blank cheques were to be deposited with the bank and therefore these cheques were handed over to the complainant which were misused. He has submitted that there was no legally payable debt, rather blank cheques were signed and handed over only by way of security. The learned counsel for the petitioner has also submitted that there was no legally payable debt on the date when so called agreement dated 06.12.2017 was executed.

3. He has further submitted that as per the complaint, the petitioner had approached the complainant in December 2017 for a loan and the agreement was entered on 06.12.2017 and thereafter the loan was disbursed. He submits that the cheque numbers have been duly mentioned in the agreement and therefore on the date the cheques were delivered to the opposite party No. 2, there was no legally payable debt. He submits that the complainant had improved his case in his evidence by stating that the loan was advanced to the petitioner during the period from 2015 to 2017.

4. The learned counsel has further submitted that the petitioner had raised a plausible defence before the learned court that there was no legally payable debt but this aspect of the matter has not been properly considered. He has relied upon the judgment passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of "Basalingappa Vs. Mudibasappa" (Cr. Appeal No. 636 of 2019) and has referred to paragraph 23 of the said judgement. Learned counsel has submitted that aforesaid submission is without prejudice to the contention of the petitioner that though the cheques were signed by the petitioner but signature of the petitioner was taken on a number of blank papers. Learned counsel has also submitted that the evidence of C.W. 2 and C.W. 3 as well as the defence evidence of the petitioner has not been properly considered and therefore the impugned judgements are perverse and call for interference.

5. The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the opposite party No. 2 has opposed the prayer and has submitted that there is no scope for re-appreciation of evidences in revisional jurisdiction. There are concurrent findings recorded by both the courts and considering the scope of interference in revisional jurisdiction and the presumption under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, no case is made out by the petitioner.

Findings of this Court.

6. As per the complaint, during the first week of December, 2017 the accused had approached the complainant for a friendly loan amounting to Rs. 15.25 lakhs to which the complainant agreed and an agreement dated 06.12.2017 was prepared for a friendly loan. Believing the content of the said agreement, the complainant agreed to advance to the accused the aforesaid amount of friendly loan and disbursed an amount of Rs. 15.25 lakhs. The accused assured the complainant that the friendly loan will be returned by 31.01.2018 and accordingly issued three cheques bearing nos. 026115, 026116 and 026120 amounting to Rs. 6.30 lakhs, 6.30 lakhs and 2.65 lakhs respectively, all dated 17.05.2018 drawn on B