Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
T.S. Thakur, Vikramajit Sen and C. Nagappan

JUDGMENT

Vikramajit Sen, J.

1. Leave granted in Special Leave Petitions. These Appeals raise a legal nodus of substantial public importance pertaining to Court's territorial jurisdiction concerning criminal complaints filed under Chapter XVII of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (for short, 'the NI Act'). This is amply adumbrated by the Orders dated 3.11.2009 in I.A. No. 1 in CC 15974/2009 of the three-Judge Bench presided over by the then Hon'ble the Chief Justice of India, Hon'ble Mr. Justice V.S. Sirpurkar and Hon'ble Mr. Justice P. Sathasivam which SLP is also concerned with the interpretation of Section 138 of the NI Act, and wherein the Bench after issuing notice on the petition directed that it be posted before the three-Judge Bench.

PRECEDENTS

2. The earliest and the most often quoted decision of this Court relevant to the present conundrum is K. Bhaskaran v. Sankaran Vaidhyan Balan MANU/SC/0625/1999 : (1999) 7 SCC 510 wherein a two-Judge Bench has, inter alia, interpreted Section 138 of the NI Act to indicate that, "the offence Under Section 138 can be completed only with the concatenation of a number of acts. Following are the acts which are components of the said offence: (1) Drawing of the cheque, (2) Presentation of the cheque to the bank, (3) Returning the cheque unpaid by the drawee bank, (4) Giving notice in writing to the drawer of the cheque demanding payment of the cheque amount, (5) Failure of the drawer to make payment within 15 days of the receipt of the notice." The provisions of Sections 177 to 179 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short, 'Code of Criminal Procedure') have also been dealt with in detail. Furthermore, Bhaskaran in terms draws a distinction between 'giving of notice' and 'receiving of notice'. This is for the reason that Clause (b) of proviso to Section 138 of the NI Act postulates a demand being made by the payee or the holder in due course of the dishonoured cheque by giving a notice in writing to the drawer thereof. While doing s........