B V Seshaiah vs The State of Telangana & Anr.

Court

Supreme Court of India

Date

1 February 2023

Case No.

Criminal Appeal No. 284 of 2023

Result

Allowed

Bench

Krishna Murari, V. Ramasubramanian

Citation

[2023] 2 S.C.R. 293 : 2023 INSC 93

Headnote

Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 – s.138 – Conviction of the Appellants – Revision filed before High Court – Meanwhile, the parties entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to settle the dispute, in terms thereof Respondent No.2 was bound to file a compromise petition before the High Court, however he failed to do so – Revision dismissed by High Court, conviction of the Appellants confirmed – On appeal, held: This is a very clear case of the parties entering into an agreement and compounding the offence to save themselves from the process of litigation – When such a step was taken by the parties and the law clearly allows them to do the same, the High Court cannot override such compounding and impose its will – Also, Respondent No.2 was duty bound to file a compromise petition before High Court, and by not doing the same has withdrawn key information from the High Court, which led to unwarranted confirmation of the Appellants’ conviction – Order of conviction set aside – Open to the parties to settle their dispute as per the MoU.

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by KRISHNA MURARI, J. 1. Leave Granted. 2. The present Appeals have been filed by the Appellants herein against the impugned order and judgment dated 17.04.2018 passed by the High Court Of Judicature at Hyderabad in Criminal Revision Case Nos. 1678/2014 and 1679/2014. 3. For the purpose of these Appeals, briefly, the facts of the present case are that on a private complaint initiated by the Respondent No.2, proceedings under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 were initiated against the Appellants herein. These proceedings led to the

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