No 20% interim relief for cheque bounce

Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 24

In a judgment that will change the way cheque-bounce cases are contested, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that the amendment to the Negotiable Instruments Act on ordering an accused to deposit up to 20 per cent of the cheque amount as interim compensation is not applicable to pending trials.

The trial court cannot order the accused to deposit the amount as interim compensation. The Bench, at the same time, clarified that the appellate court could order deposit of 20 per cent or more amount.

The ruling by Justice Rajbir Sehrawat came on 14 petitions by Ginni Garments and others, challenging orders passed by the lower courts in trials under Section 138 of the Act.

The Bench was told that the courts had ordered the accused-petitioners to pay up to 20 per cent of the cheque amount to the complainant. Challenge was also mounted to appellate court orders directing the convicts-appellants to deposit 20 per cent or more of the fine amount or compensation awarded by the trial court during the pendency of the appeal.

Justice Sehrawat asserted that the orders were impugned on purely legal ground that the courts below could not be deemed to have authority, retrospectively, to pass orders imposing the liability of payment in pending trial or in pending appeals.