Bombay High Court: Vibha Kankanwadi, J., dismissed a writ petition filed against the order of the Sessions Judge whereby he had reversed the decision of the Magistrate who had directed the respondent herein to deposit 10% of the cheque amount.
The petitioner had filed a complaint against the respondent alleging the commission of the offence punishable under Section 138 (dishonour of cheque) of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881. Subsequently, the petitioner filed an application before the Magistrate praying to direct the respondent to deposit 20% of the cheque amount in view of the provisions under Section 143-A of NI Act. The Magistrate partly allowed the said application and directed the respondent to deposit 10% of the cheque amount.
The respondent challenged the said order of the Magistrate before the Sessions Judge, who reversed the order of the Magistrate. Aggrieved, the petitioner filed the instant writ petition. He contended that the order passed by the Magistrate was purely an interlocutory order as the trial was still pending, and therefore, the revision itself was barred under Section 397(2) CrPC.
At the outset, the High Court noted that the instant complaint was filed by the petitioner before Section 143-A came into force. Relying on G.J. Raja v. Tejraj Surana, 2019 SCC OnLine SC 989, reiterated that the operation of the said section is only prospective, i.e., it does not apply to the complaints filed before the section came into force. Thus, the High Court held that the provision under which the petitioner was seeking relief (i.e., under Section 143-A) was in fact not available to him, as the complaint was filed in the year 2017, however, Section 143-A was inserted in the statute book with effect from 1-9-2018.
The High Court then considered the submissions regarding the order passed by the Magistrate being interlocutory in nature and therefore not being amenable to revision by Sessions Judge. The Court relied on the decisions in Madhu Limaye v. State of Maharashtra, (1977) 4 SCC 551 and V.C. Shukla v. State, 1980 Supp SCC 92, and restated that in order that an order would be “interlocutory order”, it will have to be seen as to whether the rights of a person are affected.
In the instant case, the High Court held that, “Magistrate applied that provision of law which was not all applicable to the case in hand before him, therefore, definitely it had affected the right of the accused. Consequently, it cannot be said that, the order which was passed by the learned Magistrate was purely “interlocutory order” as contemplated under Section 397(2) CrPC.” Therefore, the Sessions Judge was justified in setting aside the said order by exercising his power under Section 397(1) of CrPC.
Resultantly, the instant writ petition was dismissed. [Hitendra v. Shankar, 2019 SCC OnLine Bom 5644, decided on 11-12-2019]
