B. Siva Sankara Rao, J.—The unsuccessful complainant of the private complaint case for the offence under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (for short, The Act), presented the appeal, against the accused from acquittal judgment dated 01.03.2007 in C.C. No.112 of 2006 on the file of learned Special Judicial Magistrate of the First Class for Excise cases, Guntur.

2. Brief facts are that the Complainant is a merchant and doing cotton business, A-1 is cotton merchant, A-2 to A-4 are its partners and they used to purchase cotton from several persons like complainant on credit, that from 12.06.1998 onwards accused are maintaining khata with the complainant in the course of their business, that the said Khata is running and mutual. As per the khata the accused has to pay an amount of Rs.4,89,655/- to the complainant as on 05.12.2000 and the complainant demanded the accused several times to pay the said amount, that the accused gave cheque for Rs.4,76,552/- and the same was when presented returned dishonoured. The complainant issued a statutory legal notice and the accused got issued reply and did not pay the amount, for which the complainant presented the complaint