The closure of the drawer's account falls within the ambit of section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, and the court must interpret the provision to suppress the mischief and advance the remedy.

JUDGMENT :

1. The singular question involved in these cases is that whether the return of cheque/s by the bank on the ground that account of drawer/applicant is closed, falls within the ambit of section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act (NI Act)?

2. Since the aforesaid singular question is involved in these batch of matters, on the joint request of parties, matters were analogously heard and decided by this common order. Facts are taken from M.Cr.C. No. 3325/15.

3. The respondent No.1/complainant filed a complaint under section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act. It is alleged in the said complaint that the present petitioner had issued two cheques on 24-6-2013. The complainant, in turn, submitted those cheques for encashment before the bank. The cheques were bounced and the same were returned with the remark that "account is closed". Thereafter, complainant sent legal notice on 26-7-2013 by registered post. The present petitioner neither sent reply to the notice, nor paid the amount. Hence, the complaint was filed. The petitioner filed an application dated 2-4-2014 (Annexure A-4) to reject the complaint. The singular ground taken in this application is that on the date of issuance of cheque, no bank account of petitioner was existing. Hence, section 138, Negotiable Instruments Act cannot be applied. This application of petitioner was rejected by the Court on 17-7-2014. Feeling aggrieved by the said order, petitioner preferred a Criminal Revision No. 14/15. This revision was also dismissed by Court below by order dated 20-2-2015.

4. Shri S. S. Bansal, learned counsel for the petitioner criticized the said orders by contending that section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act is a penal provision. It must be strictly construed. To attract section 138, certain ingredients must be satisfied. By placing reliance on (2009) 14 SCC 683 (Jugesh Sehgal vs. Shamsher Singh Gogi), it is contended that section 138 has many ingredients which are described in para 13 of said judgment. One of such ingredients is that a person must have drawn a cheque on an account maintained by him in a bank for payment of certain amount of money to another person from out of that account. Reliance is placed on para 13 to contend that the ingredients (i and iv) are not satisfied. Hence, proceedings under section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act are not maintainable. He relied on (2013) 8 SCC 71 (Aparna A. Shah vs. Sheth Developers Private Limited and another) and (2014) 10 SCC 713 (Yogendra Pratap Singh vs. Savitri Pandey and another) to submit that the ratio of Jugal Sahgal was followed in these cases.

5. The learned counsel for the complainant on the other side, supported the order. They submit that the revisional Court considered all the relevant judgments on the point and the said order does not suffer from any legal infirmity. They also relied on certain judgments.

6. No other point is pressed by the learned counsel for the parties.

7. I have heard the learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.

8. The petitioner, at present, has not filed his reply in section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act proceedings. He simply filed Annexure A-4 dated 2-4-2014 in which he has only stated that section 138 cannot be invoked because there existed no account on the date of issuance of cheque. Before dealing with this aspect, I deem it apposite to quote relevant provisions from the Negotiable Instruments Act. Section 118 reads as under :-

"118. Presumptions as to negotiable instruments. - Until the contrary is proved, the following presumptions shall be made :

(a) of consideration : that every negotiable instrument was made or drawn for consideration, and that every such instrument when it has been accepted, endorsed, negotiated or transferred, was accepted, endorsed, negotiated or transferred for consideration; Section 139 of Negotiable Instruments Act reads as under :-

"139. Presumption in favour of holder. - It shall be presumed, unless the contrary is proved, that the