Court awards one year sentence to local villager

A local court today awarded one year sentence to a resident of village Mandofal here and ordered him to pay compensation in a check dishonour case.
The Green Commission Agents partner Darbara Singh who is complainant in this case had filed a case in court on August 12, 2013 under Negotiable Instruments Act on account of dishonour of cheque issued by accused Bhagwant Singh.
As per complainant, his firm deals with sale and purchase of food grains and the accused has been taking advance amount from him for brining his crops for sale at his shop and get adjusted the principal advance amount.

He maintained regular account books showing all the transactions of taking the amounts by accused with the promise for selling his crop at his shop and also receiving the sale price by the accused, said complainant's counsel.
On January 7, 2013, Rs 8,19,147 was due from the accused to complainant and he had issued a cheque of Oriental Bank of Commerce, Fatehgarh Sahib branch to complainant firm dated May 2, 2013 for amount of Rs 8,19,150.
When Darbara Singh presented the cheque in the payee bank (PNB, Sirhind) on June 11, 2013 it was dishonoured due to insufficient balance.

He met the accused personally and informed about the dishonour of the cheque and the accused again requested him to present the cheque again after ten days and assured that cheque would be honoured.

When he again presented the cheque on June 26, 2013 for encashment it was again dishonoured.
After hearing the case, the Judge observed that the accused on account of his failure to repay the amount outstanding against him to the complainant has not only deprived the complainant of his hard earned money but has also dragged him into uncalled for litigation which further burdened him financially.
Darbara Singh's lawyer Sanjiv Chopra informed that the Judge directed the accused to undergo imprisonment for a period of one year and also ordered to pay the amount of cheque to complainant as compensation under section 357 of the CrPC within a period of two months.