Complaints under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act should generally be tried as summary trials per Section 143; however, High Courts should generally avoid fixing strict time-bound schedules for trial disposal, leaving priority to the trial court's discretion.

The Court made the following:

ORDER:

1. Heard the learned Counsel for the Petitioners and the learned Counsel for Respondent No.1 and the learned Assistant Public Prosecutor.

2. The short grievance of the Petitioners is that the learned Magistrate instead of adopting the procedure as contemplated under Section 143 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (for brevity ‘the N.I.Act’) by taking the case as a summary trial as conducting summons procedure trial.

3. In that regard the learned Counsel for the Petitioner has relied on the decision of the Hon’ble Apex Court in Expeditious Trial of Cases Under Section 138 of NI Act, 1881, In re , 2026:APHC:5674¹(2021) 16 SCC 116, wherein at paragraph No.24 it is held as under:

“24. The upshot of the above discussion leads us to the following conclusions:

24.1. The High Courts are requested to issue practice directions to the Magistrates to record reasons before converting trial of complaints under Section 138 of the Act from summary trial to summons trial.

24.2. Inquiry shall be conducted on receipt of complaints under Section 138 of the Act to arrive at sufficient grounds to proceed against the accused, when such accused resides beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the court.

24.3. For the conduct of inquiry under Section 202 of the Code, evidence of witnesses on behalf of the complainant shall be permitted to be taken on affidavit. In suitable cases, the Magistrate can restrict the inquiry to examination of documents without insisting for examination of witnesses.

24.4. We recommend that suitable amendments be made to the Act for provision of one trial against a person for multiple offences under Section 138 of the Act committed within a period of 12 months, notwithstanding the restriction in Section 219 of the Code.

24.5. The High Courts are requested to issue practice directions to the trial courts to treat service of summons in one complaint under Section 138 forming part of a transaction, as deemed service in respect of all the complaints filed before the same court relating to dishonour of cheques issued as part of the said transaction.

24.6. The judgments of this Court in Adalat Prasad [Adalat Prasad v. Rooplal Jindal, (2004) 7 SCC 338 : 2004 SCC (Cri) 1927] and Subramanium Sethuraman [Subramanium Sethuraman v. State of Maharashtra, (2004) 13 SCC 324 : 2005 SCC (Cri) 242] have interpreted the law correctly and we reiterate that there is no inherent power of trial courts to review or recall the issue of summons. This does not affect the power of the trial court under Section 322 of the Code to revisit the order of issue of process in case it is brought to the court's notice that it lacks jurisdiction to try the complaint.

24.7. Section 258 of the Code is not applicable to complaints under Section 138 of the Act and findings to the contrary in Meters & Instruments [Meters & Instruments (P) Ltd. v. Kanchan Mehta, (2018) 1 SCC 560 : (2018) 1 SCC (Civ) 405 : (2018) 1 SCC (Cri) 477] do not lay down correct law. To conclusively deal with this aspect, amendment to the Act empowering the trial courts to reconsider/recall summons in respect of complaints under Section 138 shall be considered by the Committee constituted by an order of this Court dated 10-3-2021 [Expeditious Trial of Cases Under Section 138 of NI Act 1881, In re, 2021 SCC OnLine SC 354].

24.8. All other points, which have been raised by the Amici Curiae in their preliminary report and written submissions and not considered herein, shall be the subject-matter of deliberation by