Hon’ble Amar Singh Chauhan, J.—Heard Shri Samit Gopal, learned counsel for the applicant, learned A.G.A. for the State, Shri Pankaj Kumar Asthana, learned counsel for the opposite party No. 2 and perused the material on record.

2. The applicant, Chintamani Jaiswal, through this application moved under Section 482 Cr.P.C., has invoked the inherent jurisdiction of this Court with a prayer to quash the entire proceedings of Criminal Complaint Case No. 773 of 2006 (Naresh Kumar Bansal v. Chintamani Jaiswal), under Section 138 Negotiable Instruments Act, P.S. Shakti Nagar, District Sonbhadra, pending in the Court of C.J.M., Sonbhadra and further prayed to stay the proceedings in the aforesaid case.

3. Brief facts which are requisite to be stated for the adjudication of the application are that the complaint was filed by the opposite party No. 2 against the applicant with the allegation that applicant had given two cheques of Rs. 40,000/- each on 19.12.2000 and those cheques were presented for payment in bank on 19.4.2001 but the same was returned with the endorsement that the firm had already been close down and thereby cheques were dishonoured. The complainant had sent two notices to the applicant on 28.4.2001 and 16.5.2001 but he did not receive those notices and were returned unclaimed. After recording the statement under Sections 200 and 202 Cr.P.C. and on being satisfied, the process was issued against the applicant, against which he has filed the criminal revision No. 29/2003 which was dismissed.

4. Feeling aggrieved, applicant came up before this Court in the application.

5. It is submitted by learned counsel for the applicant that no notice was sent to the applicant and also never received by the applicant. It is further submitted that the present complaint is not maintainable on the ground that it is time barred. Learned counsel for the applicant relied on Prem Chand Vijay Kumar v. Yashpal Singh and another, Criminal Appeal No. 651 of 2005 and Neeraj Parekh v. Amit Enterprises, Criminal M.C. No. 1692 of 2011 and Criminal M.A. No. 6147 of 2011, in which it has been held that failure to pay the amount within fifteen days of receipt of demand of notice alone gives rise to a cause of action.

6. Per Contra, learned A.G.A. for the State and Shri Pankaj Kumar Asthana, learned counsel for the opposite party No. 2 contend that the complaint was filed within time as the notice were deemed to be served upon the applicant and said grounds had already been taken in the criminal revision No. 29/2003 by the applicant which was dismissed on merit.

Before adverting to the claim of the parties, it is expedient to reproduce the Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act as under :

Section 138: Dishonour of cheque for insufficiency, etc., of funds in the account.

138. “Where any cheque drawn by a person on an account maintained by him with a banker for payment of any amount of money to another person from out of that account for the discharge, in whole or in part, of any debt or other liability, is returned by the bank unpaid, either because of the amount of money standing to the credit of that account is insufficient to honour the cheque or that it exceeds the amount arranged to be paid from that account by an agreement made with that bank, such person shall be deemed to have committed an offence and shall, without prejudice to any other provision of this Act, be punished with imprisonment for a term which may be extended to [two] year, or with fine which may extend to twice the amount of the cheque, or with both:

Provided that nothing contained in this section shall apply unless-

(a) the cheque has been presented to the bank within a period of six months from the date on which it is drawn or within the period of its validity, whichever is earlier;

(b) the payee or the holder in due course of the cheques, as the case may be, makes a demand for the payment of the said amount of money by giving a notice in writing, to the drawer of