MALAI SUBRAMANIAN, J.

The petitioners are accused Nos. 1 to 3 in C.C. No. 8417 of 1999 pending on the file of the learned 17th Metropolitan Magistrate, Saidapet, Chennai. They seek to quash the proceedings pending against them for an offence under section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881.

The complainant/respondent is a public limited company and a non-banking financial institution and carrying on business in extending financial facility to its customers. The first accused entered into a lease agreement with the complainant on March 24, 1992 for Rs. 66, 61, 267 but committed default in payment of lease rentals. Later on, at the request of the first accused Sarvaraya Textiles Ltd. the said lease facility was converted into a bill discounting facility and an agreement for bill discounting facility was entered into between the complainant and the first accused on November 30, 1994, for Rs. 1, 20, 00, 000 and adjusted the said amount towards the amount due under the lease agreement.

Since the first accused committed default in payment, an agreement dated December 31, 1996 was entered into among the complainant, the first accused and the third accused. In the said agreement, the first accused agreed to pay Rs. 1, 79, 22, 192 to the complainant and to discharge part of the amount due under the said agreement, the first accused issued a cheque dated March 30, 1997, drawn on Indian Bank, Commander-in-Chief Road, Chennai, for a sum of Rs. 1, 48, 00, 000. When the cheque was presented for collection, it was dishonoured with an endorsement "not arranged for". Thereafter, the complainant issued a notice dated July 3, 1997, to the first accused calling upon the accused to make the payment towards the dishonoured cheque. Though the notice was received by the first accused on July 5, 1997, there was no payment and therefore, a complaint has been filed against the first accused company as well as the second accused managing director and the third accused director with an allegation that the second and third accused are managing the day-to-day affairs of the first accused company and responsible for the conduct of the business of the first accused company. The complaint is presently sought to be quashed on various grounds.The first ground raised by learned counsel appearing for the petitioners/accused is that though the complaint was said to have been filed on August 14, 1997, the same was taken cognizance of by the court after recording the sworn statement of the complainant only on December 10, 1999. Therefore, the complaint itself is barred by limitation as envisaged in section 468 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973. In support of his contention, he relies on a ruling of the Supreme Court reported in the case of State of Punjab v. Sarwan Singh, wherein the apex court has held that the object of the Criminal Procedure Code in putting a bar of limitation on prosecutions was clearly to prevent the parties from filing cases after a long time, as a result of which material evidence may disappear and also to prevent abuse of the process of the court by filing vexatious and belated prosecutions long after the date of the offence. Therefore, from this ruling, according to learned counsel appearing for the petitioners, the making of the complaint is relatable to taking cognizance of the offence under section 468 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and, therefore, there was a delay of more than one year in taking the complaint on file and hence the proceedings have to be quashed. But according to learned senior counsel appearing for the respondent/complainant taking cognizance of an offence is different from making the complaint and according to section 142 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, it has fixed a period of one month only for making the complaint and not for taking cognizance of the offence and merely because the court takes cognizance of the offence belatedly, the complainant may not be made to suffer, though he lodged the