M/s Rajco Steel Enterprises v. Kavita Saraff and Another Petition for Special Leave to Appeal No. 5583 / 2022

Brief Facts

Four independent complaint cases were lodged in the Court of the Metropolitan Magistrate, Kolkata by the Petitioner which were registered as CC Nos. 34905, 34906, 34907 and 34908 of 2009 respectively.
The facts of the case are that the Petitioner had granted financial assistance to the Accused/Respondent No. 1, in discharge of which the accused had issued four cheques. The said cheques were dishonoured on the ground of insufficiency of funds. Hence, complaints were lodged by the Petitioner against the Accused.
The Accused/Respondent No.1 had taken the defence that the petitioner had not provided any financial assistance, but money was advanced to the accused/respondent no.1 for undertaking stock market related transactions through her account.
The Trial Court found the Accused/Respondent No. 1 guilty and convicted him for the commission of offence u/s 138 of NI Act, 1881.
The Trial court convicted the accused under section 138 NI Act. As respondent failed to rebut the presumption contained in Section 118 read with Section 139 of the NI Act.
The First Appellate Court set aside the finding of the Trial Court finding that the Accused/Respondent No. 1 had successfully rebutted the presumption of guilt.
The appeal filed against such finding was also dismissed by the High Court.
Hence, the Petitioner filed the present Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court.

Issues

Whether the findings of the First Appellate Court and the High Court are on no evidence or perverse?

Held

The Supreme court dismissed the SLP filed by the Petitioner. The findings of the Court are as under:
The Respondent no.1/accused has put up a plausible defence as regards the reason for which the petitioner’s funds had come to her account. Both the appellate fora, on going through the evidence did not find existence of any “enforceable debt or other liability”. This strikes at the root of the petitioner’s case.
We are of the opinion that there is no perversity in the finding of the High Court, and prior to that, in the finding of the First Appellate Court, that went against the complainant/petitioner. It cannot be held that these findings were perverse, or based on no evidence. No point of law is involved in this set of cases, that would warrant our interference. We accordingly dismiss these petitions.

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