Over 33 Lakh Cheque Cases Pending In Country; Pendency Rose By Over 7 Lakh In Last 5 Months, reads Amici Report in the Hon’ble Supreme Court.
In a Suo moto case Re Expeditious Trial Of Cases Under Section 138 of N.I Act, the Amici Curiae reported that there has been an alarming increase in pendency of cheque dishonour cases in a period of just over 5 months.
The States with the highest pendency of cases are Rajasthan with 4,79,774 pending cases, Gujarat with 4,37,979, Delhi with 4,08,992 and Uttar Pradesh with 2,66,777 pending cases.
This report was submitted in pursuance of the Court’s directions in March 2021 to devise methods for expeditious trial of Section 138 NI Act cases.
The amici curiae has also filed the following response with their suggestions to the report of the Expert Committee on three aspects including
(i) mediation,
(ii) creation of a National Portal for Summons; and
(iii) the Scheme for establishment of special courts.
The main points in the report were:-
1. Service of summons under Chapter VI, Part A (Section 61-69, Cr.P.C) on the proper address of the accused is a considerable concern (and cause for delays) and therefore, a pre-prosecution mediation would entail service of mediation notice and the conduct of pre-summons mediation before the 75 days and would also pose considerable challenges.
2. Though many High Courts have stated that the time taken in mediation may be a reason to condone delay under Section 142, this issue itself will generate systemic delays and extensive litigation that would further burden the already overburdened courts.
3. Post-summons mediation, on the other hand, may not encounter such concerns except the issue of service because the settlement can be recorded in terms of compounding under Section 147 of the NI Act.
4. All mediation reports should be sent to the court so that actions for compounding the offence may be taken up by the court.
5. A scheme for mediation may be formulated and pending 138 cases, which are at the appeal, review or quashing (Section 482) stages, mandatorily be referred to the High Court annexed mediation centres after obtaining consent of parties. The mediation proceedings could be conducted online.
6. The response of the Union government may be sought immediately on the modality of operationalising such a National portal of summons since the NI Act is a Union legislation and the Union government would be best positioned to assist on this issue.
7. Special NI Courts may be set up employing the services of retired judicial officers for this purpose. This scheme could be tested on a pilot basis in 5 judicial districts with the highest pendency in the 5 states.