Courts in state’s financial capital saddled with cheque bounce cases
LUDHIANA : The district courts in Ludhiana, the financial capital of Punjab, are burdened with a high number of cheque bounce litigations with five judicial magistrates handling as many as 28,000 such cases pending till January 31.
Each of the five judicial magistrate first class (JM1C) has a pendency of cases ranging from 4,100 to 6,500.
An average 1,200 cases are disposed of by the five courts every month with nearly 1,500 new cases being filed during the same period.
Of a total of 1,31,132 pending cases in the district courts, 45,672 are civil, while 85,460 are criminal cases, with pendency in cheque bounce litigations alone pegged at 21%.
While the court of JM1C Vijay Kumar is handling 6,357 cases, JM1C Balkar Singh is looking into 5,421 cases, JM1C Satish Kumar 4,668, JM1C Gurdarshan Singh 4,618, and JM1C Devnoor Singh is dealing with 4,157 such cases.
Even as many of these cases are that of default in repayments in loans given to acquaintances, a sizeable number is filed by banks and other financial firms. In a large number of commercial transactions, cheques are issued as a device to defraud the creditors.
Lawyers dealing with cheque bounce cases say a 2018 decision of the Supreme Court giving courts the discretion (as per Section 143 A of the Act) to order interim compensation not exceeding 20% of the cheque amount to the complainant during pendency has started to show results.
Sentencing a Janta Nagar resident to two-year imprisonment in a cheque bounce case on February 13, JM1C Devnoor Singh minced no words saying “business transactions, particularly of cheques as instruments, primarily depend upon the integrity and honesty of the parties concerned”.
“Dishonouring of a cheque by the bank causes incalculable loss, injury and inconvenience to the payee and the entire credibility of the business transactions within and outside the country suffers a serious setback,” the magistrate observed.
OF THE 1,31,132 PENDING CASES IN LUDHIANA DISTRICT COURTS AS ON JANUARY 31, 21% WERE THOSE OF DISHONOURING OF CHEQUES BY BANKS