Supreme Court Directs States to Report on Steps to Speed Up Cheque Bounce Cases
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed all states and union territories to submit status reports detailing measures taken to expedite the disposal of cheque bounce cases.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta issued the order while hearing a suo motu matter concerning the prompt trial of cases under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments (NI) Act, 1881, which deals with the dishonour of cheques due to insufficient funds.
Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, assisting the court as amicus curiae, referred to the apex court’s May 2022 order that initiated a pilot project establishing 25 special courts in five states—Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan—staffed by retired judicial officers to ensure faster disposal of these cases.
“We have to see whether the pilot project is working or not,” Luthra said, adding that he had filed an application seeking a status report, including data on vacancies and appointments.
The bench directed all states, union territories, and high court registrars to submit the reports within six weeks and posted the matter for further hearing after that period.
According to the May 2022 order, the special courts were set up in judicial districts identified as having the highest pendency of NI Act cases. Retired judicial officers and court staff, preferably retired within the past five years, were employed for the project, which was to run from September 1, 2022, to August 31, 2023. These courts were to hear only cases where summons had been duly served and the accused had appeared, either personally or through a lawyer.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had issued several directives to ensure speedy disposal of cheque bounce cases nationwide. It had also asked the Centre to amend laws to allow clubbing of trials for cases filed within a year related to the same transaction.
In March 2020, the apex court had noted the massive backlog of cheque bounce cases, which stood at 35.16 lakh out of a total of 2.31 crore pending criminal cases in the country. On March 5, 2020, it registered a suo motu case to devise a “concerted” and “coordinated” mechanism for expeditious disposal of such matters.
