Ramachandriah, J.:—
Petitioner was the complainant and respondents 2 to 4 were accused in P.C.R No. 88/1989 on the file of the Metropolitan Magistrate, IV Court, Bangalore City (for short ‘the Magistrate’). It arose out of a private complaint presented by the petitioner-complainant under Section 200 Cr. P.C alleging that respondents Nos. 2 to 4 are liable to be punished under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act as amended by the Banking Public Financial Institutions and Negotiable Instruments Laws (Amendment) Act, 1988 (Act 66/1988) (for short ‘the Act’).
2. The case of the complainant as alleged in his complaint was that respondents 2 to 4 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the accused’) issued a cheque (Ex. P. 3) for Rs. 1000/- in his favour in respect of certain amount they had received under an agreement marked as Ex. P. 1. When the said cheque was duly presented, it was returned by the Bank with endorsement “account closed”. Therefore, the accused have committed an offence under Section 138 of the Act.
3. After hearing the learned Counsel for the complainant on the point of maintainability of the complaint, the learned Magistrate by order dated 15-11-1989 came to the conclusion that dishonouring of a cheque on the ground of “closure of his account” by the drawer of the cheque does not constitute an offence under Section 138 of the Act as the said Section contemplates dishonouring of a cheque either for want of funds or for exceeding arrangements made. In that view of the matter, the learned Magistrate held that no sufficient material is made out by the complainant to proceed against the accused for an offence punishable under Section 138 of the Act and, consequently, dismissed the complaint under Section 203 Cr. P.C It is the said order that is sought to be quashed by the petitioner by filing this Criminal Petition under Section 482 Cr. P.C
4. When this petition came up for consideration before this Court on 31-3-1990, Sri P. Munikrishna, appearing for the petitioner, represented that there is every likelihood of the matter being settled out of Court if two weeks' time is given. But, the learned Counsel for Respondent 2 submitted that he has no information about the alleged settlement but he had no objection for granting two weeks time. Therefore, the case was adjourned by two weeks. But, none appeared for the petitioner-complainant on 21-9-1990, again on 8-10-1990 and again on 11-10-1990 and to-day also. Therefore, Sri S.M Hegde, learned Counsel for respondents 2 to 4 accused is heard.
5. As rightly pointed out by the learned Counsel for the accused, Section 138 of the Act provides for punishing the drawer of a cheque which is dishonoured only under two eventualities. They are (i) insufficiency of the amount in the account of the drawer of the cheque to honour the cheque or the amount covered by the cheque exceeding the amount arranged to be paid from that account by an agreement made with that Bank and not on any other ground although there are several eventualities under which a cheque can be dishonoured and one such eventuality is the closure of the account of the drawer of the cheque in the particular Bank on which he has drawn the cheque subsequent to the issue of the cheque. It is well settled that penal provisions will have to be construed strictly and not liberally. In this connection, reliance was placed by the learned Counsel for the accused on a recent Division Bench decision of this Court in T.E.C.H Society Ltd. v. SC. ST. MT. & Backward Classes Improvement Centre in which a Division Bench of this Court presided over by the Hon'ble the Chief Justice has observed at page 3388 as under:
“(1) The Court will not extend the law beyond its meaning to take care of a broader legislative purpose. Here “strict” means merely that the Court will refrain from exercising its creative function to apply the Rule announced in the statute to situations not covered by it, even though such an extension would help to advance the manifest ulterior purpose of the statute. Here, strictness relates not to the meaning of the statute but to using the statute as a basis for judicial law making by analogy with it.”
Construing the provisions of Section 138 of the Act in the said manner, it is not possible to accept the case of the petitioner as set out in paragraph-3(e) of the grounds raised in the petition that the learned Magistrate had failed to note that the intention of the Legislature was to punish the persona who committed offences mentioned under Section 138 of the Act by liberally construing the provisions of that Section and the view taken by the learned Magistrate is very narrow as it would defeat the very purpose of enacting Section 138 of the Act. Consequently, I hold that the petitioner has not made out a case for quashing the impugned order in exercise of the inherent power under Section 482 Cr. P.C
6. In the result, the Petition is dismissed.