1. By means of this petition, the Petitioners have challenged the constitutional validity of sub-section (2) of S.142 and S.142A of the Negotiable Instruments Act as amended by The Negotiable Instruments (Amendment) Act, 2015.

2. The Petitioners had issued a cheque in favour of private Respondent No. 3. The Bank of the Petitioners is Axis Bank situated at Kolkata. The cheque was presented by Respondent No. 3 at Raipur and when the cheque was dishonoured, proceedings under the Negotiable Instruments Act (hereinafter called 'the Act') were initiated at Raipur in the year 2011. These proceedings continued till 2014. Thereafter, a three Judge Bench of the Apex Court decided a number of cases, lead case being Dashrath Rupsingh Rathod v. State of Maharashtra , 2014 AIR SCW 4798 : AIR 2014 SC 3519 and held that only that Court will have the jurisdiction to entertain the complaint under S.138 of the Act where the Branch on which the cheque has been drawn, is situated. The effect of this judgment was virtually nullified by the Negotiable Instruments (Amendment) Ordinance, 2015 issued on 15.06.2016 which was replaced by the Negotiable instruments (Amendment) Second Ordinance, 2015, issued on