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Judgment
Prafulla C. Pant, J.—By means of this petition moved u/s 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short Cr.P.C.) the petitioner has sought a direction awarding appropriate sentence against respondent No. 2 and respondent No. 3 in view of the amended provision contained in Section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881.
Brief facts of the case are that a criminal complaint was filed in the year 1997, alleging that for payment of certain outstanding amount to the petitioner, the respondent No. 2 issued cheque No. 481335 dated 18.07.1997, cheque No. 503551 dated 10.12.1997 and cheque No. 503552 dated 25.12.1997, each amounting Rs. 5,000/-. When the cheques were presented by the complainant/petitioner, the same were dishonoured by the bankers due to ''insufficient funds''. Thereafter, necessary notice was issued by the petitioner but the respondents No. 2 and 3 made no payment. On this, a criminal complaint case No. 419 of 1998, was filed by the complainant against respondent No. 2 Gagan Garg, who issued the cheque and respondent No. 3 Sheetal Prashad, on whose behalf a cheque was issued. Vide impugned order dated 16.06.2004, Special Judicial Magistrate-II, Dehradun, convicted the two accused u/s 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, and sentenced to each one of them to fine of Rs. 1,000/- with further direction to them to pay compensation of Rs. 15,000/- to the petitioner/complainant. Aggrieved by said order the criminal revision No. 97 of 2004, was filed by the petitioner/complainant, which was also dismissed vide impugned order dated 25.08.2004. Hence this petition.
Learned Counsel for the petitioner/complainant drew attention of this Court to the amended provision contained in Section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, and argued that the sentence passed by the trial court, and affirmed by the revisional court is erroneous in law. Reliance is placed in the case of Suganthi Suresh Kumar v. Jagdeeshan AIR 2002 SC 681.
I have gone through the impugned orders, amended provision of law, and case law referred by the petitioner. The amended enhanced sentence is substituted in Section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, vide Act No. 55 of 2002. The present case pertains to the period prior to 06.02.2003, when the amendment made in section, 138 came into force. This Court is of the view that no doubt the sentence awarded by the trial court is quite lenient one, which has been affirmed by the revisional court but technically it cannot be said to be erroneous of law. The maximum sentence which could have been awarded was either imprisonment which could extend to one year (now two years) or with fine which may extend to twice of the amount of the cheque, or with both. In the present case amount of Rs. 15,000/- has been directed to be paid as compensation and a fine of Rs. 1,000/- is directed to be deposited by each of the petitioners, in default, the defaulter convict is directed to undergo one month''s simple imprisonment. Apart from this, the trial court has also sentenced each of the convicts to imprisonment till the rising of the court. Since, no minimum punishment is prescribed, the sentence awarded can not be said to be illegal. As far as the case of Suganthi (supra) is concerned, in said case in a case of cheque amounting rupees five lacs (Rs. 5,00,000/-), fine of only Rs. 5,000/- was awarded. As such, the facts of said case cannot be equated with present one.
Having considered submissions of learned Counsel for the parties and after going through papers on record, this Court does not find it a fit case to be interfered with the sentence awarded by the trial court. This Court is also of the view that the powers u/s 482 of Cr.P.C., cannot be exercised for enhancing the sentence in criminal cases.
For the reasons as discussed above the petition u/s 482 of Cr.P.C., is dismissed.