Blog

Wrong number of the cheque in the complaint would not make any difference if the documents placed on record gives the correct position and can be taken as a typographical/inadvertent mistake and the same was upheld by High Court of Delhi through the learned bench led by Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar in the case of Naresh Chand Tyagi vs. Devender Kumar Tyagi [CRL.M.C. 3367/2021] on 17.02.2022.

The facts of the case are that the petitioner is denying that cheque bears his signature which was issued to the respondent. Further, no FIR was registered with regard to the issue instead, respondent filed a complaint against the petitioner pertaining to a different cheque number or on the basis of cheque not bearing his signature. The petitioner further stated that the cheques were lost or stolen which is evident from the fact that no letter/communication has been sent to bank to stop the payment of the cheques concerned.

By way of this petition, the petitioner is seeks to quash the Criminal Complaint filed by the respondent for an offence which is not even in existence since the cheque was never issued by the petitioner.

The petitioner’s counsel submitted that the cheque was never issued by the petitioner. Further, the cheque number has been written wrongly everywhere whether it is the notice or the pleadings of the complaint and even the evidence by way of affidavit does not fulfil the ingredients of Section 138 NI Act. It was further submitted that there is no provision of amendment in a criminal proceedings and hence, once a complaint is filed in the trial court, the complainant cannot be amended at any stage of the trial. The complaint did not contain any averment with respect to the petitioner and the role played by him in commission of the alleged offence.

The respondent’s counsel submitted that it is only a typographical error and that the copy of cheque along with the bank return memo was duly annexed with the complaint displaying the correct cheque number which was issued by the petitioner herein to discharge his liability. It was further submitted that after going through all the annexed documents, it was observed that there are sufficient grounds to issue summons as the cheque was returned dishonoured as the funds were insufficient.

In the instant case, after considering the facts and circumstances of the case, the Court established that it to be evident that there was a typographical error. It was therefore, held that wrong number of the cheque in the complaint would not make any difference and with the above observations present petition was dismissed.

The Court observed that “wrong number of the cheque in the complaint would not make any difference if the documents placed by respondent on record gives the correct position and can be taken as a typographical/inadvertent mistake.”

Click here to read the Judgment

Judgment reviewed by – Shristi Suman