Over 25,000 cheque bounce cases pending in Chandigarh District Court

Chandigarh has recorded second highest pending cheque bounce cases amongst all the union territories in the country.

As per the latest figures 25, 437 cheque bounce cases are pending in the Chandigarh District Court.

Delhi topped the list with 4,54, 653 cases pending till December 18, 2024.

Goa recorded 11,314 pending cases while Puducherry recorded 6035, Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Diu and Daman 1417. Alternatively, Lakshadweep recorded 13 cases.

There are approximately one lakh cases pending in the Chandigarh District Court.

The cheque bounce cases are highest in all the categories of pending cases, comprising, a 25 percent share in the total.

Kanchan Dewan, advocate of District Bar Association Chandigarh, said there is a need to take urgent steps to curb further increase in the pendency of cheque bounce cases. She said, though the District Court has some designated courts to deal with the cheque bounce cases, they are still inadequate in comparison to the increase in the cases.

She said that the city has witnessed a surge in cases, recently, as it has become the centre of economic activity of northern India.

Rajesh Sharma, another advocate said, to reduce the pendency, proper planning is required at all levels. A system should be adopted to sort out the cheque bounce cases in a time bound manner. Delay in such cases are also causing loss to the economy. To address this, frequent Lok Adalat must be held.

He said there are many factors responsible for this delay. Some of these include complexity of facts involved, nature of evidence, cooperation of stakeholders i.e. investigation agencies, witnesses and litigants.

The cheque bounce cases are covered under Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (NI Act). He also said that the Supreme Court of India has also issued detailed guidelines to all the criminal courts for dealing with NI Act cases which has to be followed by all.