Cheque bounce case: Man jailed, asked to pay Rs 1.6L damages

A man was sentenced to two months in jail in a cheque bounce case by a city court, which noted that he had opportunity to pay but failed to do so.
Additional Sessions Judge Reetesh Singh also asked Yogesh Kumar Sansanwal to pay a compensation of Rs 1.6 lakh to south Delhi resident and complainant Rakesh Sharma.
The order came on an appeal filed by Sansanwal against a trial court order sentencing him to undergo two months jail term and to pay Rs 1.6 lakh to Sharma.
The convict had approached the sessions court claiming that he was willing to make payment of the cheque amount and prayed for mercy saying more opportunities ought to have been given to him.

The court, however, dismissed his appeal and upheld the jail term saying, "the appellant (Sansanwal) offered to make payment of cheque amount as well as further settle amount to complainant (Sharma) several times before the trial court, for which his statement was recorded on three separate occasions, but he failed to do so".
"The trial court has already given more than sufficient opportunities to the appellant to have made payment of the settled amount. Even before this court, the appellant could have made the payment of the compensation as granted by the trial court in the impugned order but he has not done so," it said.

Sansanwal, who knew Sharma, had borrowed Rs one lakh from him in 2011 and issued a cheque. But when it was presented, the cheque was dishonoured by the bank with the remark 'account blocked'.
Thereafter, Sharma tried to approach Sansanwal but he did not respond. He then issued a legal notice to Sansanwal for the payment and followed it up by filing a complaint before the court under the provisions of the Negotiable Instruments Act in November 2011.
After that also, Sansanwal issued several cheques to pay the money to Sharma, all of which bounced.