Tripura High Court: Sanjay Karol, CJ allowed the compounding of offence in a case where the accused had been convicted for an offence punishable under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881.
The conviction recorded by the trial court was also affirmed by the Sessions Judge in appeal. Now, the convict along with the complainant prayed before the High Court for compounding of the said offence.
Keeping in view the law laid down by the Supreme Court in Damodar S. Prabhu v. Sayed Babalal H., (2010) 5 SCC 663 and Meters and Instruments (P) Ltd. v. Kanchan Mehta, (2018) 1 SCC 560, the High Court allowed the petition for compounding of the offence. Consequently, the convict was held to be not liable to undergo imprisonment in terms of the trial court’s decision. However, he was directed to deposit an amount equal to 15% of the cheque amount with the Tripura Legal Sevices Authority within a period of 4 weeks. [Rakhal Sen v. Ganesh Debnath, 2019 SCC OnLine Tri 119, Order dated 02-04-2019]