Review some legal procedures
Sir,
It refers to the welcome
ruling of the Supreme Court that a trial court may frame
charges against an accused without recording reasons
thereof. Honourable Court rightly observed that time has
come to adopt all possible measures to expedite court
procedures, and to find ways to avert all roadblocks
causing avoidable delays.
It is high time that
various legal acts and procedures may be reviewed to
quicken the present snail-paced proceedings specially in
trial courts. It may be noted that many court-cases are
filed only to postpone things. If steps are taken to make
judiciary moving fast, then number of court cases will
automatically be drastically reduced!
Revised chapter XVII
starting from section 138 was effective in The Negotiable
Instruments Act 1881 from 01.04.1989 to check rising
incidents of cheque-bouncing. But useless formalities of
getting culprits punished under section 138 of The
Negotiable Instruments Act, make it very difficult,
time-consuming and costly to get benefit out of this
section. For instance, personal appearance of the
complainant may not be necessary on each date. There is
no sense in useless lengthy dates summoning first only
the banks involved in non-clearing of the bounced
cheque/s, when there are documentary-proofs like the
cheque-return and debit memos issued by the banks, and
the bounced cheque itself bearing clearing stamps of the
banks. Procedure should be simple to issue summons
directly to the accused person/s immediately on filing of
the complaint for personal appearance of the accused,
while complainant may be allowed to be represented
through lawyer or attorney. Banks may be summoned only
when court is not satisfied about validity of the bank
documents filed with the complaint. Such simplicity will
save time and cost of not only complainants but also of
courts and concerned banks. Rather, there should be
simple complaint-form which may have all necessary
informations relating to cheque-bouncing. Also there may
be a proforma for the mandatory notice to be sent to the
accused giving final opportunity to pay for the bounced
cheque, before filling of the actual complaint.
Likewise other
criminal/civil procedures and acts may be reviewed for
ensuring justice in time with minimum cost.
Yours etc....
Subhash Chandra Agrawal,
1775, Kucha Lattushah,
Dariba, Delhi-110006
|
