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14. The grounds urged by the learned counsel appearing for the complainant in this appeal is that, the issuance of the cheque and the signature made therein since had been accepted or not denied by the accused, the initial presumption under Section 118(a) as well as under Section 139 of the NI Act is always in favour of the complainant and therefore based on such a statutory presumption, the trial Court proceeded to dispose the case. While that being so, the first appellate court, without appreciating the statutory presumption already established in favour of the complainant, has simply set aside the Judgment and conviction made by the trial Court. http://www.judis.nic.in

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17. It is also to be borne in mind that the requirement of giving of notice is a clear departure from the rule of Criminal Law, where there is no stipulation of giving of a notice before filing a complaint. Any drawer who claims that he did not receive the notice sent by post, can, within http://www.judis.nic.in 15 days of receipt of summons from the court in respect of the complaint under Section 138 of the Act, make payment of the cheque amount and submit to the Court that he had made payment within 15 days of receipt of summons (by receiving a copy of complaint with the summons) and, therefore, the complaint is liable to be rejected. A person who does not pay within 15 days of receipt of the summons from the Court along with the copy of the complaint under Section 138of the Act, cannot obviously contend that there was no proper service of notice as required under Section 138, by ignoring statutory presumption to the contrary under Section 27 of the G.C. Act and Section 114 of the Evidence Act. In our view, any other interpretation of the proviso would defeat the very object of the legislation. As observed in Bhaskarans case (supra), if the giving of notice in the context of Clause (b) of the proviso was the same as the receipt of notice a trickster cheque drawer would get the premium to avoid receiving the notice by adopting different strategies and escape from legal consequences of Section 138 of the Act''.

49. It is a settled legal proposition that, the initial legal presumption in favour of the complainant as contemplated under Section 139 and 118(a) of the NI Act is a rebuttable presumption.

50. In this context, I would like to quote certain decisions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court, which I have followed in my order in K.Senthilmurugan v. P.Satishkumar, reported in 2018(2) MWN (Cr.) DCC 56 (Mad). Though in the said case, I have set aside the Judgment of the trial Court as well as the first appellate Court and set the accused at liberty, the principle I have followed in that case following the decisions of the Hon'ble Apex Court in the context of statutory presumption in Negotiable Instrument matters under Section 138 of the NI Act, can very well be pressed into service in this case also. In the said decision, N.Lakshmi v. P.Damodarasamy, reported in 2018 (1) LW (Crl) 584 was followed by me and the relevant portion of the said Judgment is extracted hereunder :

26.In a number of cases, the Law under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, has been developed and strengthened by Law Courts at various point of time. If the initial presumption under Sections 139 and 118 of the Negotiable Instruments Act give a favourable tilt towards the complainant, such a statutory presumption is always a rebuttable presumption only.