Can’t be expected of educated person to issue blank signed cheques: Chandigarh court

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Chandigarh, August 1

Judicial Magistrate (First Class), Chandigarh, Gurdeep Kaur has sentenced Palvinder Kumar, proprietor of PMT Guru, Sector 34-A, here to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one year in a cheque-bounce case.

“It cannot be expected of an educated person to issue blank signed cheques to a professor, whose services are hired by him merely for the reason that the complainant wants to avoid payment of taxes. The contention of the accused is not found plausible,” observes the court.

The court has also directed the convict to pay Rs 58 lakh as compensation to the complainant, Dr Arvind Goyal, proprietor of Med Xel Tutorials, who is a resident of Sector 15, Chandigarh. Dr Goyal had filed a complaint to the court against Palvinder under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, through his counsel Pradeep Bedi. In the complaint, he said Med-Xel Tutorials signed an agreement with PMT Guru, through its proprietor Palwinder Kumar. Under the agreement, he was to take biology classes at PMT Guru. It was agreed that the distribution of gross receipt would be in the ratio of 25:75, i.e. 25% to PMT Guru and 75% to the complainant. A minimum guarantee fee of 100 students per batch was to be paid to the complainant by PMT Guru.

The counsel for the Palvinder argued that the cheques were basically security cheques in favour of the complainant. Since he relished good relations with the complainant, on the latter’s request, a part of the payment, which was to be paid in lieu of the tuition fee, was agreed be shown in the return as rent in order to evade the tax liability. He said it was for this understanding that the accused had issued blank security cheques to the complainant, which had been misused by him.

The court also said the accused had failed to prove that the cheque issued were basically security.