Section 138 of the
Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881
The area of practice of these chambers is confined to Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 — the dishonour of a cheque, in everyday use called a cheque bounce case.
Matters are conducted at four stages: the statutory demand notice, the complaint, the summary trial, and the appeal or revision. They are conducted before the Magistrate and Sessions Courts at Mumbai and before the Bombay High Court.
Both sides of a matter are acted for — the holder of a dishonoured cheque, and the person on whom a notice or a summons has been served.
Chapter XVII prescribes a sequence of periods. Each runs from a different event, and the offence is made out only where every one of them has been answered.
The periods, the order in which they run, the provision each comes from, and the rule that fixes the court before which a complaint lies are set out on the pages that follow.
The advocate speaks and understands English, Hindi, Marathi and Tamil. A consultation may be held in whichever of the four the person is most at ease in.
Opposite Orlem Church, Orlem, Malad West,
Mumbai 400064
10 AM–5 PM
By prior appointment only
Two sides of the same section
A matter under Section 138 has a holder and a drawer, and the law gives each of them a different set of questions to answer. The two are set out separately below.
Where a cheque held by a person has been dishonoured
What Section 138 requires before an offence is made out, the periods prescribed by the section and by Section 142, and the event from which each of them begins to run.
Where a notice or a summons has been served on a person
What a demand notice and a summons mean in law, how the presumptions under Sections 118 and 139 operate, what displaces them, and which defences the courts have recognised.
Every matter turns on its own facts. A person with a question of their own should take independent advice from a qualified legal practitioner. The particulars of these chambers are on the Contact page.
The Act itself, in full
All seventeen chapters and every one of the 148 sections of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, reproduced in statutory order on a single page — provisos, explanations and illustrations retained, searchable by section number or phrase, with a plain-language note on each of the cheque-dishonour provisions of Chapter XVII.
Nothing on that page links away to another site.
Principles the courts have settled
A short selection of reported decisions on Section 138, in summary only. The summaries are the author's own and are not a substitute for the reports themselves.
The presumption under Section 139 extends to the existence of a legally enforceable debt
How the presumption may be rebutted
A signed cheque voluntarily handed over
The judgments summarised above are reported decisions of the Supreme Court of India and are in the public domain. They are cited for the general propositions of law they lay down. No representation is made that the advocate appeared in any of them, and nothing above is a representation or assurance as to the outcome of any matter.
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Chambers & Contact
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