The rule. Where the cheque is delivered for collection through an account, the offence is to be inquired into and tried by the court within whose local jurisdiction the branch of the bank in which the payee or holder in due course maintains that account is situated. Where the cheque is presented for payment otherwise than through an account, jurisdiction lies where the branch of the drawee bank is situated. That rule was introduced by the Negotiable Instruments (Amendment) Act, 2015, and it displaced the position stated in Dashrath Rupsingh Rathod v. State of Maharashtra, (2014) 9 SCC 129.
What follows from it. The place at which the parties reside is not the test. A person who has drawn a cheque in one State may accordingly be answerable to a court in another, if that is where the account into which the cheque was deposited is kept; and a holder may find that the complaint lies where his own bank branch is situated rather than where he lives or where the debt arose. Nothing in the Act requires either the complainant or the person accused to reside within the local limits of the court trying the complaint.
Where the person accused resides beyond the area. Section 225 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (Section 202 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 for a matter governed by the Code) requires a Magistrate, where the person accused resides beyond the territorial area of his jurisdiction, to postpone the issue of process and either to inquire into the case himself or to direct an investigation, before process issues. In a complaint under Section 138 the complainant’s evidence is ordinarily on affidavit under Section 145 of the Act, and the inquiry is ordinarily conducted on the material so filed.
Attendance. Under Section 228 of the Sanhita (Section 205 of the Code) a Magistrate issuing a summons may, if he sees reason to do so, dispense with the personal attendance of the person accused and permit him to appear by his advocate; and under Section 355 (Section 317 of the Code) attendance may be dispensed with at a stage of the inquiry or trial. Both are discretionary, both are exercised on an application, and the Magistrate may at any stage direct personal attendance notwithstanding an earlier order. In Bhaskar Industries Ltd. v. Bhiwani Denim & Apparels Ltd., (2001) 7 SCC 401, the Supreme Court held that where a court is satisfied that the interest of justice does not require the personal attendance of an accused, it has the power to dispense with it, and that in an appropriate case a Magistrate may allow even the first appearance to be made through counsel and may record the plea taken by counsel on the accused’s behalf. What the Magistrate is to consider on such an application — whether any useful purpose is served by personal attendance, and whether the progress of the trial is likely to be hampered by its absence — was stated in S. V. Muzumdar v. Gujarat State Fertilizer Co. Ltd., (2005) 4 SCC 173. The satisfaction is the Magistrate’s in every case, and an exemption once granted may be made subject to conditions and may be recalled.
Representation. An advocate whose name is on the roll of any State Bar Council is entitled, under Section 30 of the Advocates Act, 1961, to practise before any court in India, including the Supreme Court. That provision was brought into force on 15 June 2011. The entitlement is to practise; it does not displace the rules of a particular court as to who may present a filing before it, and several High Courts require an advocate not on their own roll to comply with local requirements as to registration or an address for service. Rules of that kind were upheld in Jamshed Ansari v. High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, (2016) 10 SCC 554. Which requirements apply is a matter for the court in question.
Attendance by video conferencing. Following the Model Rules for Video Conferencing for Courts settled by the e-Committee of the Supreme Court of India in 2020, the High Courts have framed rules providing for the conduct of proceedings by video conferencing, and have extended them to the district judiciary within their respective jurisdictions. Those rules treat a proceeding conducted in that mode as a judicial proceeding for all purposes. Whether a party, a witness or an advocate is permitted to participate in a particular hearing by video conferencing is in every case a matter for the court concerned, regulated by the rules of that court and by the order it makes on the occasion; practice is not uniform between courts and no expectation of it can be stated in advance. Nothing in those rules obliges an advocate to appear only in that mode.