Quashing of Summons issued for Allegations under S.138 of Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881

Quashing of Summons issued for Allegations under S.138 of Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881

In case of Har Sarup Bhasin v. Origo Commodities Pvt Ltd [2020] GCtR 1096 (Delhi), the accused has filed a petition challenging the summons issued to him in respect of allegations related to offence under S.138 of Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881. The petition filed by accused was allowed and summons issued to Har Sarup Bhasin were quashed. In this case, company was made accused number 1 and Har Sarup Bhasin was made accused No. 6 ; accused no. 6 succeeded in getting the summons quashed from High Court.

In this case accused had argued "that the summons were only issued at the address of the accused no.1 i.e. the accused company and not at his address i.e. 117/64, Q-Block, Sharda Nagar, Naveen Nagar, Bilhaur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh; that the accused had joined the accused No.1 company as an Independent, Non-executive Director and that he was never involved in the day to day affairs of the company at any point in time." The accused further submitted that on 27.06.2016, he had filed a resignation letter under Section 168 of the Companies Act, 2013 and subsequently ceased to be an Independent Director of the accused company. It was noted that "taking into account also the factum that even if the petitioner - accused was a Key Managerial Person of the accused No.1 company as per the reply affidavit of the respondent as filed on 08.07.2007, he was so for the period from 01.04.2015 to 31.03.2016 and the date of the drawing of the cheques in question are 07.06.2016."