The court ruled that a breached settlement from a Lok Adalat can lead to the restoration of original convictions and ordered the revival of earlier proceedings.

ORDER

The petitioner is before this Court seeking a direction by issuance of a writ in the nature of mandamus for expeditious disposal of Execution Case No.640 of 2017 pending before the City Civil and Sessions Judge, Bengaluru and has also sought further slew of prayers including restoration of the order of conviction and sentence dated 26-08-2015 passed against the respondent No.1/accused No.2 in C.C.No.15698 of 2014 by the XXI Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Bengaluru.

2. Facts adumbrated are as follows:-

The petitioner is the complainant and respondent No.1 is accused No.2. The 1st respondent is the firm represented by its proprietor the 2nd respondent. For the sake of convenience both these respondents would be referred to as ‘respondent’ in this order. Both the petitioner and the respondent have a transaction and the transaction leads to issuance of a cheque by the respondent in favour of the petitioner for an amount of `49/- lakhs drawn on Axis Bank Limited. The cheque when presented for realization was dishonoured for want of sufficient funds on 21-01-2014. The petitioner takes up legal proceedings against the respondent/accused before the learned Magistrate invoking Section 200 of the Cr.P.C., for offence punishable under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (‘the Act’ for short). The learned Magistrate by order dated 26-08-2015 convicts the respondent in C.C.No.15698 of 2014 holding him to be guilty of the offence punishable under Section 138 of the Act and sentences him to pay a fine of `29,10,000/- and in default to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of ten months. It was further ordered that a sum of `29,00,000/- was to be paid to the complainant by way of compensation under Section 357 of the Cr.P.C., out of the fine amount.

3. The respondent immediately prefers an appeal before the Principal City Civil and Sessions Judge at Bengaluru invoking the provisions under Section 374 of the Cr.P.C., in Criminal Appeal No.1216 of 2015. During the pendency of the appeal, the Court refers the matter to the Lok Adalat for settlement of dispute between the petitioner and the respondent on 05-05-2016. The matter gets settled before the Lok Adalat on that day and an award is drawn up by the Lok Adalat whereby the accused undertook to pay sum of `29,00,000/- in installments, failing which the petitioner was at liberty to recover `30,00,000/- with 12% interest from the date of the award. The accused fails to make any payment or fails to adhere to the conditions of settlement. The petitioner then files an execution petition before the concerned Court in Execution Case No.640 of 2017 on 03-03-2017 and the present writ petition is preferred on 07-06-2023, 6 years after filing of the execution case alleging that there is no progress in the execution case. Therefore, a direction to the concerned Court to expedite the execution case and secure the presence of the respondents 1 and 2 is sought. The matter was heard, reserved and posted for its pronouncement on 18-11-2023, at which point in time, it was noticed that the 2nd respondent though had been absconding, effort to serve him was not directed to be made. Therefore, this Court on 18-11-2023 had passed the following order:

“The matter was heard, reserved and is also listed for pronouncement of order today. Notice was not issued to the accused in C.C.15698 of 2014. Though, the accused has been evading the process of law for the last 6 years and no NBWs issued against him by the concerned Court are executed, as every attempt of execution has been returned as addressee le