A court here has upheld the award of four-month imprisonment to a man for failing to honour a cheque of ₹75,000 towards repayment of a loan.
The court also asked the accused to pay a fine ₹1.5 lakh to the lender.
The borrower had come in an appeal in the court of Additional Sessions Judge Pankanj Gupta at the Rohini courts against a Metropolitan Magistrate court that had convicted and sentenced him to imprisonment of four months and fined ₹1.5 lakh.
The complaint stated that the lender had given a friendly loan of ₹75,000 to the accused for 15 days, and the borrower had given him a cheque of the same amount towards repayment.
‘Insufficient money’
But the when complainant deposited the cheque for encashment, the bank refused to make payment saying that there was insufficient money in the borrower’s account.
Thereafter, the complainant served a legal notice on the accused seeking his money back with interest, but the borrower paid no heed to it. Then the complainant filed a complaint against the accused person.
Before the subordinate court, the accused had taken the plea that he had not given the cheque to the complainant. He submitted that rather he had taken a loan of ₹27,500 from the complainant’s son at 3% interest per month.
Blank signed cheque
As he failed to pay the interest, he gave a blank signed cheque to him which he misused through his father, counsel for the accused said.
“The impugned cheque bears the signatures of the accused at three places, i.e., at the place of drawer, above the portion where date was mentioned and above the portion where the amount of ₹75,000 was mentioned in word, so as to authenticate the date and the amount. Thus, the defence of the accused as to blank signed cheque stood falsified by bare perusal of the impugned cheque itself. Consequently, issuance of the impugned cheque by the accused stands duly proved by the evidence of the complainant,” the Metropolitan Magistrate said.
Upholding the MM judgment, Mr. Gupta said, “The perusal of the record reveals that the accused admitted issuance of the said cheque but stated that he issued the same in favour of son of the complainant namely Dheeraj Arora and it was blank that time. The accused has not disputed his signatures at three different places on the said cheque. Further, counsel for the accused has failed to point out any infirmity in the above-mentioned findings of the trial court. Hence, it can be held that the cheque was issued by the accused to the complainant to discharge his liability. Therefore, the appeal stands dismissed. Appellant/accused be taken into custody and be sent to the judicial custody.”
